


Thaw

by Domenika Marzione (domarzione)



Series: Freezer Burn [6]
Category: Captain America (Comics), Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Drama, Gen, Missing in Action, Winter Soldier (but more Brubaker than movie for now)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-08
Updated: 2013-08-16
Packaged: 2017-12-18 04:57:27
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 66,992
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/875862
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/domarzione/pseuds/Domenika%20Marzione
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Winter Soldier was the dog that ate the good guys' homework during the Cold War, a convenient bogeyman to explain failure, and Clint Barton was pretty sure those tall tales died with the fall of the Wall. But reality is stranger than fiction, something Clint really shouldn't be as surprised by as he is at this stage of his career, and now there are ghosts to chase once more.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> [_Freezer Burn_](http://archiveofourown.org/works/457359) is not strictly required reading for this any more than seeing _The Avengers_ is required for understanding _Iron Man 3_. You’ll miss a few references but lose nothing of the plot.

The first Clint heard of anything was when Stark emailed him to ask what was screwed up on the operational end of SHIELD. Stark said Natasha was being weird, an assessment Clint couldn't do anything with because as far as Stark and Natasha went, it was always a little weird, with different reasons for both of them. Also Stark said Cap was off the grid, not even returning texts, which usually meant he was on a mission, except he hadn't said anything was coming up, not even elliptically, which meant it was a sudden assignment. Which in turn meant that something was wrong.

Clint replied that (a) he was in the field himself and had been for more than three weeks, (b) Cap did lots of things without prior approval from either Stark or SHIELD, and (c) why didn't Stark ask someone on the Helicarrier, Clint knowing full well that Stark already had and had gotten nothing. Which was why he was emailing Clint.

Stark had a lot wrong with him and how he operated, but his trouble radar wasn't completely broken. Clint had been running silent for most of the last month and he'd maybe wondered himself if something was up when he'd logged into his email for the first time in seventeen days and seen a lot less personal communication than he'd normally accumulate in that timespan. Especially because there wasn't a single thing from either Steve or Natasha after the sixteenth. Nat had finished up her last mission the day after Clint had arrived in Beirut and they'd been in contact until Clint had left for Syria; she'd had a list of suggestions for where to eat and drink and buy toys that SHIELD would not provide, the last of which mattered more to her than to him because he had a posse of crazy people at Mattituck who'd give him whatever he wanted.

He skipped trying Tapper or Corrales or anyone off the Helicarrier and went straight to the phone number Natasha answered always (which wasn't the one SHIELD knew about).

"What's going wrong that even Stark's noticed?" he began with instead of hello. "I have just returned to what can pass as civilization after three weeks in hell and instead of pictures of puppies or cranky old man observations about Park Slopers or whatever it is Rogers is into this week, I have this. I don't _want_ this."

His team had crossed the border into Iraq that morning and gotten to Mosul in time for an expansive lunch at a popular restaurant after first checking into their hotel (no USG quarters for men on a mission that did not exist) and washing the road and the horrors of Syria off of their skins if not their memories. What a fucked-up place, even by Clint's very well calibrated definition of fucked-up-ness. Kurdish Iraq was not like the rest of Iraq and Mosul was nice in many spots - Clint had spent a happy few hours walking off lunch at the air-conditioned mall looking at the fancy toys with no fear of being blown up - but even Ramadi in the early days would have looked good after Syria. He'd seen more dead children in the last month than in the last five years and he hated Fury for insisting that no, really, Clint was exactly who he wanted for this mission and then trading on the better part of a decade's history of trust to get Clint to drop his protests.

Natasha's answer was a profound sigh.

Clint hadn't decompressed enough to properly appreciate the tale of Yasha Yachmenev, who had probably been her lover (Clint could read epics in her ellipses) and perhaps less probably Sergeant James Barnes (because he would buy a lot more shit than he used to since he'd started running around with aliens and rage monsters, but his Cold War paranoia only went so far). Not to mention that the whole 'hijacked brain' bit jabbed him in uncomfortable soft places that he didn't want to examine too closely. But even if he couldn't feel the rhythm, he could at least follow the beat and even if he wasn't sure what was going on or was not yet in a position to care deeply enough to respect his friends' stresses, he could understand how this was sending the Avengers reeling off-center. Steve was their backbone, the steady bass in a jazz group (to carry the metaphor way too fucking far) that could play the standards together but still tripped each other up when the improv stretched on for too long. All of them felt entitled to their own dramas because Steve would be there to make sure one of them didn't bring all of them down. Funny how that had changed so much in so short a time. All of them were lone wolves, aggressively antisocial and not playing well with others, and then along came one defrosted hero and one crazy Asgardian and, all of a sudden, they were a _team_. It shouldn't have mattered to a bunch of independent operators if Steve was off somewhere on a highway ignoring phone calls, but it did matter and now that everyone else was suddenly grasping for their Cap-colored lifeline at once and finding out that it wasn't there, there was panic.

It would be at least a day before he could laugh about the irony of how both Tony and Natasha had decided that he could fill in in the interim. He sent Steve a text to that effect and considered the matter closed because Steve would get back to him - or not - when he was ready.

A day later, he got a reply in the form of a photograph from Birmingham of a plaque commemorating Martin Luther King's letters from jail, which Clint took as Steve saying that he didn't want to talk about it.

It took Clint the better part of a week to get back Stateside because, to his utter not-surprise, there was something for him to do in Iraq first. There was always something to be done in Iraq and Clint seriously doubted that it had to be done by him, but his controller back in New York -- he didn't bother remembering their names, they were all interchangeable idiots -- had probably not even considered anything beyond his own promotability when he'd agreed to it on Clint's behalf.

By the time Clint did get back to New York, Natasha was off on a mission and Steve had returned from his walkabout and promptly been sent to Ecuador with Corrales's team to intercept a shipment of HYDRA materiel, so Clint could go straight to Fucktard Controller #4 and explain in very small words (mostly of four letters) that he did not appreciate being turned into the Nearest Available Asset for a mission a rookie agent already in country could have handled, especially not after such a miserable primary mission.

"I am not a fucking lawnmower for you to lend out to whoever needs to cut their grass," Clint told FC4 in front of a room full of analysts, because FC4 had been operating on the faulty premise that there was safety in numbers. "Pull that shit again and you are not going to live long enough to redeem these brownie points you're banking off my ass."

And then he went down to the range and emptied his quiver three times, destroying two dummies in the process.

"If you keep this up, I am going to put you on an equipment allowance like Cap," Tapper said from the back of the booth where he was leaning against the wall. Clint had noticed him five arrows ago, but since Tapper had stayed put instead of interrupting, then Clint was happy to delay the inevitable chewing-out until he was calm enough not to take Tapper's head off, too. "At least use the dummies without the sensors; they cost a third of the price to replace and you already know you can hit whatever you aim at."

"I'd be happy to use a certain operations analyst instead, save SHIELD the payroll and the pension," Clint said as he hit the button for the target recall and what was left of the dummy started moving jerkily toward him. "I am fucking sick of this shit, Tapper. This wasn't the first time. Do you know he had the nerve to tell me I shouldn't be upset, at least it was in the same country? As if the _travel_ was what was pissing me off?"

A loud sigh from Tapper and Clint finally looked over. Tapper had been a field agent before his unfortunate injury and an even more unfortunate promotion that had kept him out of the field once he'd been cleared to return. He understood why Clint was pissed, but his sympathy was not going to cover the entire cost.

"I'm not going to defend Frade," Tapper said, walking closer so that he didn't have to raise his voice. This range was for non-firearm weapons -- knives, arrows, throwing stars, whatever pointy things people wanted to aim -- and quieter and less crowded than the pistol range, but that wasn't quiet or empty. "But you used him the way he used you -- to make a point to any interested parties. You didn't need to make a scene."

"I was trying to speak a language he understood," Clint said, wiping down the bow and folding it. "Because 'field agent' is not one he's fluent in."

"No, you were trying to humiliate him for pimping you out to CENTCOM," Tapper replied sourly. "And you were making it that much harder to replace him."

Clint looked over sharply. "You're not going to keep us together, are you?"

It wouldn't be Tapper's decision, of course, but Tapper had pull with the people who would make that decision.

"Frade would be the fourth controller you've burned through in the last two years," Tapper reminded him. "You're more than pulling your fair share in adding to the Avengers' reputation as hard to work with and incapable of taking direction. Don't make that face -- you are all, the lot of you, a bunch of prima donna special snowflakes and I have better things to do with my time than dig up people who are willing to work with you and pay off the ones who already have."

Clint had been putting his bow back in its carrying case but paused. "Are you calling Captain America a prima donna? And is that why he's in Ecuador?"

Tapper frowned at him. "Cap is the most special snowflake of all of you, even if he doesn't have an ego. He's got other complications that more than make up for it. And no, he's in Ecuador because Corrales is down three men and asked if he wanted to go."

Clint finished packing up. "What are we doing about the Winter Soldier, by the way?"

He was a week's sleep away from being able to care about it like he ought to, but the details could be processed. 

Tapper rubbed his face and sagged a little, frustration with what he perceived to be avoidable problems replaced by the frustration that came with the unavoidable kind. "Do you mean 'what are we doing about Yasha Yachmenev' or 'what are we doing to keep Widow and Cap from running off and doing something really stupid'? Because the answer to both is just a fancy way of saying 'pray a lot.'"

They parted ways at the outer door to the range, Tapper warning him once more to stop making work for him. A quick trip to HR confirmed that he was alive and still on payroll and would be on official stand-down once he finished his debriefings, which was a completely pointless administrative status considering that anyone who really wanted to use him had the authority to override it and even less respect for HR than he did. He spent the elevator ride down to the street using the app on his phone to order dinner from Lucky's so that it would get to his apartment a few minutes after he did. His plan for the evening was to sit in his underwear, eat his cheeseburger and fries, drink beer, and catch up on _Dog Cops_ , which was not only relaxing, but also the fastest way to readjust to being Stateside after more than a month of sleeping in his battle rattle with his finger on his trigger guard. 

The next day was spent eating out (pancakes with as much processed pig meat as could be mustered after six weeks in Muslim countries), organizing his notes for his written reports, eating in (delivery from the Thai place that had the extra-spicy papaya salad), making a half-assed attempt at getting over his jetlag (working from home meant that nobody could tell if you itemized your expenses with a nap in between tabulating each pile of receipts), and ignoring the increasingly offensive emails from FC4, who progressed to texts and phone calls by mid-evening to no greater success. The three days after that were spent in conference rooms with various department reps and FC4, being asked questions about whatever that unit had interest in -- Iranian involvement, Turkish involvement, Islamist involvement, were there HYDRA weapons, were there chemical weapons, how many other foreign agents? The actual details of the fighting in Syria weren't that important, but like a society wedding, who was there and what were they accessorizing with, that was the thing. 

After that, Clint was told he was stood down, which was not the same thing as 'on vacation.' What it meant was that he was a fixed target for every department he normally could avoid by fleeing the country -- his physical was due, his mandatory quarterly psych eval was three quarters overdue, he hadn't made his benefits selections, he hadn't signed the paperwork for his pension reinvestment, and he owed $532.51 to Finance unless he re-submitted the expense sheet for last year's visit to Gambia. And then there were the media availability requests from PR, which Clint forwarded to Tapper without comment because they'd agreed that he could suffer through the occasional bowhunting magazine feature, but he'd be excused from the mainstream stuff. Once that was done, he made plans to spend the rest of the week at [the proving grounds in Mattituck](http://archiveofourown.org/works/711557) before there was a workplace incident on 44th Street. 

Yang, his unofficial official armorer, was happy to see him even before Clint produced the char siu baos and peppered him with a thousand questions about arrow performance and maintenance and then showing off some new ideas, most of which were not at the testing phase. Which didn't stop Clint from trying a few out. The cluster-bomb arrow would be really cool once it did what it was supposed to, which was split into a dozen smaller projectiles that continued on the same trajectory in a wider grouping, instead of what it currently did, which was send a dozen smaller projectiles in every which direction and then everyone running for cover. There were also new bow designs, which Clint was never as eager to try out because his relationship to his bow was far more personal and this felt far more like infidelity. But Yang did have a pretty sweet compound bow that folded into next to nothing and could still manage a 70 pound draw weight and Clint agreed that that was one worth working on. 

There were more traditional weapons, of course, and Clint placated Tapper -- who had not been thrilled by his flight from bureaucracy -- by requalifying on the pistol and rifle, making 'expert' on both without trying too hard. Then it was the weekend and Clint spent it at Orient Point Park at the far eastern edge of the North Fork before returning to Manhattan on Monday so that he could pee in a cup for his drug test. 

Steve returned from Ecuador on Wednesday, so they had dinner and watched the Cards-Cubs game and did not talk about Bucky Barnes or Syria. Friday morning, Natasha blew up a factory in Cote D'Ivoire, apparently by accident although sometimes it was hard to tell with her, and Clint and Steve totally were not hiding out in the Situation Room watching events unfold on satellite. Hill gave them the stink-eye anyway. Steve offered to let Clint tag along on his visit to Offut, but Clint was not so desperate that he'd prefer to go glad-handing airmen in Nebraska to whatever SHIELD could do to him. 

"You'll beat all of them in the PFT," Steve offered as they broke for lunch at the kosher bagel place on 43rd. "It's good for the ego, so I'm told."

"They're airmen. Peggy Carter can beat all of them in the PFT," Clint replied, repositioning his lox. "I'm gonna get activated any day now. I've managed to complete enough HR tasks and drive Tapper batshit enough that they'll punt me at the first global crisis they can find." 

Steve sucked whitefish salad off his thumb as he picked up a bagel half. "You would have liked Ecuador. Casimir made it rain bananas when he fired one of the toys we found."

There had been HYDRA weapons in Ecuador, nothing too exciting but there'd been a lot of them and they'd been intended for nothing good. Steve confirmed to Clint that yes, he'd been asked about Latveria, too, which had seemed a little weird because Latveria had had no truck with HYDRA whatsoever, had probably shot most of the HYDRA followers inside their borders, and Clint hadn't really considered that Victor von Doom would be a market destination for what HYDRA had left behind. But that's why he was a field agent and not an analyst, or so he'd been told repeatedly during his own debriefs. From Steve's expression and tone of voice, he must have been told the same things. 

By the end of play, Natasha had made good her escape with a spectacular amount of collateral damage -- she'd stopped being in real peril before lunch, so Clint felt that video-game jokes were appropriate by the afternoon, although Hill seemed to think differently (even if he caught her fighting a smile at the Q-bert joke) and Steve kept missing the references. Clint wished Steve a good trip to Nebraska and went over to the Pakistani taxi-driver place on Ninth to pick up dinner before walking home. 

Sunday night, there was an email from Hill telling him to be at 44th Street for a pickup to the Helicarrier at 0830; he was back on duty. 

* * *

Lebanon, as a rule, was a circular firing squad in a field of daisies: beautiful except for where all of the bloody stupidity was. Which depending on what day it was, could be anywhere. Beirut on this visit was mostly calm, which did not mean that there weren't balaclava-clad men toting AKs hanging out in front of the beauty parlor, but instead that the beauty parlor was open anyway and doing business. Clint 'salaam'ed the duo as he went into the grocer next door to the beauty parlor, coming out with fruit and cheese and having left a message for his preferred local arms dealer that he was back in town and would be needing to place an order.

Because Clint hadn't been careful of what he wished for and he was going back to fucking Syria.

Fury himself had given him his orders, which was both a testament to how badly they sucked and how badly SHIELD command thought he would take it and a little bit how much he was valued that they didn't want him quitting, but not a lot because they knew he had no other life skills and was too much of an adrenaline junkie to quit. But he could get Steve to protest on his behalf and he rather thought that they were a little afraid of _that_. There was no guilt trip like a Captain America guilt trip. It was like the Force and Darth Fury might be the master of the dark art of it, but the Jedis won in the end.

(Clint was Han Solo in this scenario, although Natasha had said that _she_ was and he was Princess Leia the one time they'd discussed it. Tony was definitely C-3PO, that much they agreed, and while there were arguments to be made for both Bruce and Thor for Chewbacca, they'd gone with Thor because Bruce had a better facility with electronics and Thor was furrier, although not by much.)

But Clint hadn't run to Steve because (a) he fought his own battles and (b) Fury had given him what he really wanted, which was a new operations analyst to run him, one with field experience and enough of a security clearance to realize when Clint was tied up with Avengers crap and couldn't be running errands. Also, (c) there was no chance of him ever getting a cushy mission again if he flaked on Syria, where he'd already done so much work that briefing a replacement would almost make the getting-out-of-it more exhausting than the going.

Of course, that had been his own reasoning on the ride back to 44th Street, but here, in the pleasant climes of Beirut, it was a little less reasonable. The news here was full of the killings and the refugees from next door, all filtered through whatever bias suited the tellers, and it swarmed around him like the mosquitoes he'd tried to forget from his last visit. And he still hadn't met his new controller yet, so whether this person was someone he could grow to trust or would just be FC5 remained undecided, although it was trending toward the latter the longer Clint had to wait for face-to-face contact. There's been emails and texts, but Clint liked to look someone in the eye to take their measure before he went off and risked his life on their request and, for a guy who made his living as a spy, he was really no fan of the cloak-and-dagger shit. Especially since they were supposed to be on the same side.

There was a package waiting for him at his hotel when he returned, properly marked to indicate that it was from SHIELD (which meant that there was nothing on it whatsoever that made it look like it was from SHIELD) and not a bomb or whatever. Clint had put in a request to Mattituck for specific trick arrows and there'd been no way for Yang and his people to complete the order before Clint had shipped out, so this was that plus whatever else the quartermasters had been told to cough up and some last-minute briefing material from his still-faceless controller. He took the box upstairs, leaving a peach for the clerk since he'd been eying them enviously and the package hadn't been tampered with.

Back in his room, Clint did his security sweep and ate his apricots and halloum before he opened up the box. When he was sure there would be no knocking on the door -- the hotel was out of the way, but there was no getting away from various factions' spies and Clint didn't exactly look like someone who could pass himself off as either a local or a businessman -- he cracked the seals. There was a flash drive and a couple of stacks of cash (dollars, euros, some extra Lebanese pounds that were totally unnecessary because US dollars worked just fine in Lebanon) hidden in a biometric-lock canister, bottles of replacement fluids for his arrows (paralytic, sleep agent, poison) labeled as eye drops and witch hazel, and then the arrows themselves in a box marked as incense. Clint poured the contents out onto the bed to look them over -- not that he didn't trust Yang, just that he was particular like that -- and stopped shortly halfway through because he'd asked for six additional arrows and there were seven. Which was not a problem on the face of it -- Yang was always throwing in extras -- except that there was no reason for Yang to have had this particular arrow.

Years ago, back when Clint was still in his spy adolescence (certain parties would say that Clint was _still_ in his adolescence, spy or otherwise) and Coulson was still keeping his distance from his agents, Clint had snuck down to Virginia, where Coulson had been spending his birthday far away from his agents requalifying at the range and other administrative tasks, and shot an arrow that played 'Happy Birthday' at Coulson's target during his pistol quals. Coulson being Coulson, he hadn't so much as flinched and simply shot a circle around the arrow. And then sent Clint to Somalia for a long, boring mission that he had blandly assured was not payback but totally had been. But he'd also kept the arrow, something Clint hadn't realized until years later when he'd gone into Coulson's office while Hill had been clearing out his desk.

Clint had figured that that would have been the last any of them would have seen of the arrow. Except for the fact that it was currently lying on his bed nestled in with the extra cartridge arrows. And his mild irritation and growing suspicion that his newest controller was FC5 was blossoming into something between disdain and outright hatred. Who the hell could have thought it was a good idea to go through Coulson's stuff to try to forge a connection with him? He was part of the reason Coulson was dead in the first place. Even the analysts _without_ Avengers clearance knew better than to rub this shit in his face.

He was supposed to be meeting with Agent Martini tomorrow at a cafe in Raouché and it was a temptation to not wait until then to blow his top, but rage was something that could keep and so instead he packed everything away, stored it, and then changed to go running down on the Corniche. He got back, showered, changed to go out, and made his way to another of Natasha's restaurant suggestions, where he had a fabulous dinner and got advice on where to go next, which turned out to be a club full of visiting expats and Frenchmen, which did not sound all that appealing on the face of it, but before he could finish his one drink and go, he got dragged on to the dance floor by a gorgeous Lebanese woman who lived in San Diego and had the same opinion of the French as he did. They ended up back at her hotel because there were even fewer Frenchmen there.

He got back to his own hotel early enough to shower and change, but not to walk to the meet, so he got a cab that let him off five blocks away and he performed proper counter-surveillance before making his approach to the cafe. The arrow was in his backpack and he made a half-hearted promise to himself not to jam it into any soft part of Agent Martini's person.

(For the purpose of this exercise, hands qualified as soft parts.)

Clint hadn't been given a photo or description of Martini, just the assurance that he'd be immediately obvious, which Clint had thought was incredibly annoying and also defeating the purpose, since agents of any stripe are not supposed to be obvious and Martini was supposed to be a field guy. But then Clint walked out to the back garden seating that looked out over the cliffs and yeah, it was pretty fucking obvious.

"You are the lowest piece of shit on the face of the Earth," Clint spat out, slamming the arrow down in front of Agent Martini, who in another life had gone by the name of Phil Coulson. "How the fuck... you know what? Don't answer that. You're just going to tell me it's fucking orders and I'm going to get even more pissed off than I am, which I'm not sure is even fucking _possible_ , and that would cause a scene. And we are supposed to not be causing a scene. But just for the record? I want to punch you through next week and then give you to the Hulk as a chew toy."

Coulson took off his sunglasses. "I'm sorry."

Clint glared at him because that was a very small gesture under the circumstances. "I could have lived the last few years knowing that there was one _fewer_ person I helped Loki kill."

That list was so long that Clint couldn't remember all of the names, even though he read through the list every year on the anniversary. Most of them he hadn't known, even by face, but there'd been a few he had spoken to. And then there'd been Coulson.

Coulson's posture softened just a little. "You didn't _help_ Loki do anything," he said sadly. Clint had been told this a hundred times already and it hadn't taken and it wasn't going to take here and now, when he was still so furious. "Are you going to blame James Barnes for what he did as the Winter Soldier?"

"He's going to blame himself, he won't need anyone's help there." Clint frowned at him. "And while I'm glad to know that you're up to date on what's making life in the Avengers so interesting these days, that brings us back to the part where you show up here after being dead for _years_ and I am supposed to just swallow that and follow your direction when I head off into the great genocidal swamps of hell across the border. Why the hell are you here, Coulson?" 

Their waiter came with a carafe of water and they ordered breakfast and Clint waited for it to be just them again. 

"I've been working on and in Latveria for the last two years," Coulson said when their coffee had been served. "You practically need to be a ghost to avoid their internal security agency, so that's what I became."

Clint shook his head, putting his anger aside for now. "Why the hell does Fury care about Latveria so much? Doom's crazy like a fox, but Fury's acting like he's the new Schmidt when Doom would have been the first person to shoot the old Schmidt."

The waiter came by with labne and bread. 

"Latveria's drawn the attention of Brussels," Coulson began as Clint tore off a piece of the flatbread to dip in the labne. "And they've already had the attention of Mother Russia. Doom doing something _rash_ for the sake of breathing room is what Fury's worried about."

"Rash as in picking up HYDRA weapons," Clint said and Coulson, mid-sip of coffee, nodded. "I can see him getting worried about Moscow's long reach, but the _EU_? Aren't they busy regulating the curve on bananas or whatever it is they do? The EU doesn't give a crap about the Balkans on a good day. And considering how much Doom hated HYDRA, is he really going to be buying their product?" 

"Latveria is surrounded by the EU on three sides," Coulson pointed out, leaning back so that a tray of jams and candied fruits and cheeses and more breads and a bowl of fruit salad could be placed on the table. "And it doesn't have a great relationship with Serbia, the one border that's not EU. Doom talks a great autarky game, but that's impossible. The country is landlocked and needs overflight rights and rail and road links to survive, plus most of its income comes from international finance, which the EU can spike in an afternoon. Doom can afford to be the wacky uncle, but he can't actually be the pariah he pretends to aspire to be."

"So why would he be saber-rattling with HYDRA toys?" Clint asked, mashing a candied eggplant on to the labne-covered bread. Latveria was, far and away, the most prosperous of the former Soviet Bloc nations, but it was weird and secretive and more than a little bit like North Korea except that its citizens had ample food and electricity and internet access and nobody got shot for leaving. "I mean, specifically with HYDRA toys. I get the whole dignity preservation angle."

"Efficiency," Coulson replied, neatly serving himself a sample of what was spread out before them. "HYDRA had the newest and nicest stuff on the planet. Latveria has a small population and hard-to-protect borders; couple that with their tech sector and it makes sense. Doom won't field stolen HYDRA tech, but he's got the local brainpower to reverse engineer and improve almost everything HYDRA has. And possibly sell it, if he gets pissed enough. We had enough trouble stopping the AIM spiders and whatnot as it was; the last thing we need to see are its better-done replacements."

"' _We_ had enough trouble stopping the spiders?'" Clint repeated wryly. "What _we_ , Kemosabe? I spent the fight in New York dangling out of a Huey and nearly getting my head bashed in on Church Street, what were you doing?"

"Watching the news on a big screen in downtown Doomstadt," Coulson replied. "Same place I was for the Minyar assault, although that was by intention and not happenstance."

Clint understood the revelations to be something akin to a peace offering, but Coulson wasn't expecting an immediate forgiveness and Clint wasn't prepared to offer one. In time, he probably would and Coulson undoubtedly knew that, but he was trying anyway and Clint could appreciate the gesture. Later.

"None of this explains why I'm going back to Syria," Clint said after they'd eaten a bit. "And considering what I'm likely to have to deal with once I'm there, I'd kind of prefer it to not be a wild goose chase."

"We need the intel on the weapons movement," Coulson answered. "Syria is where the action is these days for higher-end death-dealing, more than Africa or Pakistan. We know the rebels are getting their supplies mostly through Egypt and Iran and the government is accepting anything from anyone who wants to give things to them, which is mostly Russia for now, but there are other ratlines that are supplying what isn't in the 'mostly' and we need to track them down. Latveria is getting their materiel somewhere from someone and the more we can figure out about how they're receiving goods, the easier it is to figure out what kind of goods they're receiving.

"The Israelis are doing a lot of legwork, but they're focused -- obviously -- on their own defense and their needs aren't always the same as ours. The CIA is punting, so even if we never find HYDRA weapons, it's our baby. And that makes it _our_ baby."

Clint took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Sometimes he hated that the Middle East had become his region of specialization, for which he could entirely blame the Army for assigning him to the Fifth Special Forces Group once upon a time, which had put him ahead of the game when it came time for everyone else to get dumped in the sandbox and drawn Fury's attention to him in the first place. In his SHIELD career, it had meant a life that was never boring, if chronically short on sunscreen and the patience required to accept all of the different ways "inshallah" meant "not right now, bucko."

"So I can be the skeevy dealer and not the war tourist," he mused. It would make things marginally easier, to have more direction to his wanderings than just a general observer detail, but it put him in no better position to avoid being a witness to tragedy and even less of a position to stop any of it. "Woohoo."

The rest of breakfast was mostly eating and detail discussion, what Coulson wanted him to look for and what he was likely to find and what he was supposed to do about anything he did find. It was disturbingly easy to work together like this again, to read each other's non-verbal expressions and understand what wasn't being said as well as what was. Make no mistake, Clint was still royally fucking pissed, but he understood that orders were orders, that Fury's orders were sometimes stone-cold bastard orders, and as butt-hurt as he was now, none of that mattered to the actual larger game. He'd get over it, sooner than later -- although he planned to hold this over Coulson until the end of time -- but for the time being, he could take what he could out of the fact that he was going into a mission with a controller he trusted implicitly.

Even if he wasn't giving him the entire truth right off the bat.

"What's the punchline to this story?" Clint asked as they settled the bill. "You are, once again, leaving out the best part."

Coulson frowned at him. Clint raised his eyebrow in challenge.

It was all well and good for Fury to be worried about mecha spiders and plasma cannons that could shoot pizza-sized holes in buildings, but Clint had worked for Fury for the better part of a decade and he had a decent sense of the man's priorities and panic threshold. Bringing Coulson back from the dead was the reaction to a much greater threat than mecha cockroaches or whatever else AIM had built for HYDRA in bulk.

"If we are going to start Round Two of this association," Clint said calmly when Coulson didn't reply, "then we are not going to start it in the same fashion that Round One ended, which is someone deciding that I don't need to know something that probably won't matter at all operationally, but will matter a whole hell of lot otherwise. So make a choice, _Agent Martini_ , on how you want this controller-asset relationship to work."

Coulson's eyes were hidden by his sunglasses once more, but Clint kept his gaze firm and waited. Finally, Coulson gave him a sharp nod.

"We have credible intel that says that Doom has George Tarleton's body," Coulson finally said. Tarleton, known to some as modoc, had performed extreme surgery on himself to make him part android. Clint had killed him at Minyar during the capture of Schmidt and the rescue of Steve, putting an arrow through the control panel implanted in his skull. But the body had gone missing by the time they'd gone back for it and they'd never recovered it. It hadn't been the only corpse of value in that underground lab.

"You think he's got one of the Cap clones," Clint realized aloud, taking a deep breath and exhaling. "Holy fuck."

There'd been eight clones in tanks, plus the one Schmidt had been planning to use. They'd taken that one with them when they'd captured Schmidt, but it had been hard to tell how many of the others they'd collected later on. The tank room had been collapsed by intentional detonation and what they'd actually collected had been _pieces_ , something Clint hadn't wanted to know and sincerely hoped that Steve still didn't.

"We think there might be all or part of one out there," Coulson allowed. "We know Doom knows what Extremis is and that he wants it for himself, for the Latverian Defense Forces. It's not likely to be in Syria, but the more ideas we have about how things are getting in and out, the better chance we have to find out if he's got it or if he thinks he has a chance of getting it."

Clint rubbed at his face. "Jesus Christ on a pogo stick," he muttered. "Steve has no idea."

Coulson shook his head. He didn't need to add that it would be bad if Steve found out. The question was what would happen when Steve found out anyway, since for a guy who was still time-lost more than he'd like to admit, he was very good at what he did. Better than most of them, Clint included, sometimes gave him credit for.

"I hope to hell you're wrong about this."


	2. Chapter 2

"Did they give you something? Are you taking it?"

Clint frowned at Steve over his beer bottle as he took a long drink. "Yes, _Mom_ , they gave me something. And no, I didn't take it because if you wanted someone to come over and drool stupidly on your couch, you'd have called Stark."

Steve gave him a chastising look, but said nothing because they both knew that Tony had spent more than a few pickled evenings on Steve's couch.

Syria had gone fine until it hadn't. He'd gotten a lot done -- checked in with his old contacts, made a few new ones, built his cover's bona fides with an especially foul-mouthed staredown with an AK-wielding tough guy who wasn't used to being challenged, and bought a couple of parts the Pentagon sure as shit hadn't meant to be on the open market. He'd found two different groups that moved items from Eastern Europe and the Balkans as well, although one of them was too small-fry to have done anything for Latveria; Stephan mostly supplied the Balkan mafias with firearms and Latveria produced their own. Everything had gone well-enough even after he'd moved on to Tartus, which was as close to a stronghold as Assad had outside of Damascus. He'd gotten some great intel about how Assad was moving things in and out, including the shipment of HYDRA high-energy weapons he'd bought (though a third-party cut-out). Clint had followed that from port to warehouse and had managed to tag the HYDRA items for future tracking when he'd been caught on the exfil. Not caught-caught, but caught enough that there'd been a high-speed chase on a motorcycle not quite as off-road-ready as the ads would have you believe. He'd tumbled ass-over-teakettle off an elevated dirt road, landing free of his pursuers if not quite free of the bike. Nothing was broken, but his shoulder had been dislocated (he'd put it back himself), his knee sprained, and he had a wicked case of rural road-rash to go with the requisite bruising and cuts. He'd shown up at his retrieval point -- Tartus had been his last stop in-country -- late and so covered in dirt and blood that there'd nearly been an incident due to misidentification.

"I'll take it later," Clint assured. "I need something to sleep, anyway."

Steve continued to cut vegetables. "Are you not sleeping?" he asked, not looking up from his task.

"I'm busted up six ways from Sunday," Clint said tartly. "I keep waking myself up because everything hurts. Don't you start with the psych evals. I have all the SHIELD nannies I care to."

Steve shrugged, which was him both acknowledging it and dropping it. Steve wasn't a fussbudget; he let you know where he stood and then he let it go, leaving it up to you and your conscience to do the right thing because he trusted that you would. It was more effective as a management strategy than you'd think because your conscience tended not to want to disappoint Captain America, no matter what the rest of your brain was considering. It wasn't a perfect strategy -- witness Stark's lost weekend between the Triple Bombings and Minyar -- but it was a darned good one. All the more so because it wasn't a strategy as far as Steve went; he simply had faith in his colleagues and friends that they would be as responsible and considerate as they could be. Which, considering the people Steve hung around with, was kind of a big leap of faith. And yet...

They talked about those people as Steve finished cutting up peppers and onions for the fajitas. Bruce had published an article in some scientific journal and neither of them even understood the title of it, let alone what it was actually about. Nobody had heard from Thor in months. Tony was currently sleeping on the couch because he'd announced at the Stark Expo -- the yearly product update for shareholders -- that the _old_ Stark Expo would be revived, complete with pavilions and dioramas and whatever the hell else went on at these things. He'd done this without so much as bouncing the idea off Pepper first, which, Steve thought, was the real reason she was pissed off. "I don't think she would have expected him to listen to her if she'd said 'no' or 'wait,' but she could have at least braced for impact..."

"Impulse Control Lad strikes again," Clint agreed, stealing a pepper slice off of the pile that was headed for the griddle. "Your birthday's coming up. He probably thought you'd like it, it would be fun, and that was that. The little people would work out the details."

Steve paused, tilting his head. "I hadn't thought about it like that. I hope Pepper doesn't think I asked him to do it."

"Is she still answering your calls?" Clint asked, reaching for another pepper and pulling his bruised knuckles back when Steve slapped his hand -- hard -- with the flat of his knife. "Then she's not pissed at you. She knows what she got herself into. But you're still going to have to open the thing or give some speech or whatever while 'The Star Spangled Man' plays in the background, so, you know, save the date."

Steve made a disgusted face, but nodded. "I suppose it's got its own kind of approriateness to do it now. Bucky's back, so is the Stark Expo," he said, turning back to check on the meat. "It was the last thing we did together before everything got weird."

The story of Captain America had been taught as part of American history when Clint had been in school and he'd learned a lot more about the soldier before he'd gotten to meet the man, but Steve wasn't one to talk about it -- he'd frown and make disapproving noises at the most egregious liberties history had taken with his life story, but otherwise it remained off-limits. And the other Avengers, blessed with woeful, horrifying backstories themselves, respected that wish because they understood that they still had the choice to tell or not tell their own tales; in the seventy-plus years since Captain America disappeared, there hadn't been a lot of stones left unturned when it came to the myths and legends and secrets of Steve's life. He'd been laid bare for the historical record, entered into the public domain, and if there were morsels of his life that had somehow managed to escape discovery and broadcast, then they were his to keep without complaint or question.

All of which meant that for Steve to bring it up himself -- bring _Bucky_ up himself, in the context of the Winter Soldier... Clint waited to see what Steve wanted to do, if it was a one-off remark or the start of a conversation.

"I think Peggy would enjoy it," Steve went on, flipping the flank steak again. He and Clint had gotten into arguments over the years about whether you should or should not keep bothering the meat; Clint being in the laissez-faire corner and Steve being Steve and having read up on the matter in whatever cooking magazine discussed such things before deciding that continuous flipping was the way to go and it didn't matter what everyone else told him to do. "Howard talked up that flying car quite a lot. I think he thought she'd be more impressed by it than she was."

There was something in Steve's tone that made Clint think that while he was changing the topic out loud, he wasn't in his mind. He might not be thinking about the Winter Soldier, but Clint knew what he sounded like when he wasn't quite in this century.

"You should tell Tony to make you a real one," Clint offered instead. "Think about how easy the trip down to Philly would be if you weren't a slave to 95."

Steve smiled and Clint ignored the vaguest hint of gratitude there. "It _will_ be my birthday soon."

"You are the best friend of a billionaire," Clint reminded him as he took a swig of his beer. "You should make more use of that than you do."

Both of their phones started buzzing while Clint was setting the table and they exchanged a look as they reached for their devices; this wouldn't be the first time a meal had been interrupted like this. But it wasn't like this; Steve's text was a message from Miranda Tung about a dinner plan -- "wait, you two are going to see each other's dinner live and in person instead of sending a picture?" -- and Clint's was from Natasha, a picture message of a very fat man in a shiny shirt and trousers next to a very peroxided blonde with too much makeup and wearing a too-tight dress holding a small dog. They were both red-faced and bleary-eyed and holding glasses that, if Clint couldn't already tell, were from a night club.

"I like your message better," Clint muttered, texting back 'WTF?' to Natasha, who was currently in London rattling the gilded cages of the substantial Russian oligarch expat community to see what anyone knew about the Winter Soldier and/or Latverian black market dealing. Doomstadt was the banking capital of Central and Eastern Europe and the rumors of how many billions of rubles in Russian oil and gas money were held in the Royal Bank of Latveria were all ridiculous and all the more ridiculous for likely being true. The Swiss were still who they were, but the farther East you went, the more likely that your nest eggs were in Doomstadt's impregnable and impermeable vaults. Victor von Doom had been the Finance Minister from the start of his father's reign until his own accession; he might not like foreign visitors, but he understood that he had to like foreign currency if Latveria was to survive after the Soviet Bloc had crumbled.

Natasha texted back a name and Clint coughed out a laugh. The man in the photograph, last time Clint had seen him, had been slender, sickly, and so far in debt to his bookies that Clint had been sure he'd never survive the late fees, let alone keep a lady in the style to which she would quickly grow accustomed.

"God bless the unbreakable Russian constitution," Clint chuckled, pocketing the phone after texting back a statement of suitable surprise. "Misha Gorodin, survivor and thriver."

They ate with gusto; men with meat and beer and little desire to pretend to be more civilized about it than that. They talked baseball and hockey and Clint told him about the cluster-bomb arrow that was still more roman candle than useful weapon and had to stop himself from repeating a joke Coulson had told him because Steve didn't know that Coulson wasn't dead. Clint didn't feel too badly about keeping that secret -- not compared to the other secrets that were far more related to Steve -- because he'd been in the security clearance game an awfully long time and didn't think anyone should take that sort of shit personally. He hadn't flipped out when he found out that Natasha had already known about Coulson -- he'd gotten upset, of course, because Natasha, more than anyone, knew how much guilt he carried for Coulson's (and everyone else's) death, but he'd let it go. Steve would not do so as easily when the time came, but it wasn't going to be something Clint would feel the need to apologize for, unlike the knowledge that Latveria might very well have a clone of Steve lying around Castle Doom. 

Dessert was a tres leches cake Clint had brought once he'd heard what was on the menu. They took socially-unacceptably large pieces each. Clint knew he'd be running it off in the morning, but he'd also lost five pounds in Syria (at least) and he wasn't a dieter.

"Natasha's okay?" Steve asked as he rooted around in the fridge for whatever it was he was looking for. "Looking for Bucky. _James_ \-- I don't think he'd been called that since we finished school. They have a history, I've gathered."

Clint cocked an eyebrow at his back, both at the unironic understatement -- Natasha had a little more than just a history with the man -- and at Steve bringing it up. "She's fine, for her own values of fine," he replied slowly. "I think she, like everyone else, is a little more worried about you."

Steve closed the fridge without finding what he was looking for, if he'd been looking for anything in the first place. "I'm fine, for my own values of fine," he said and challenged Clint to call him on his co-opting of the evasion. "I've done this before, gone looking for Bucky when nobody else thought he could be found. Could be saved."

Clint sighed, closing his eyes, knowing this discussion had been coming and dreading it just the same. He'd have been happy to never have it, to keep an eye on Steve and Natasha without ever having to explain why beyond the self-imposed requirements of friendship. "Some people can't be saved," he said carefully but forcefully. "Especially when it means saving them from themselves. And never more than when they don't think they need saving."

Steve bridled, ready to fight -- he'd had this argument with everyone already, Clint was merely the last in line and he, of all people with his Blue Period buried deep, should have not added to the queue -- but then paused. "You're not talking about Bucky."

"Yeah, I am," Clint confirmed. "Just not _just_."

With a deep breath, he started the tale of woe that was the Brothers Barton. Twenty years ago, finding himself in the life every teenager dreamed about -- no parental control and no school, just traveling and entertaining and kissing the girls and making 'em cry before moving on to the same tent in a new town -- he'd realized, suddenly and jarringly, that this was not how he wanted to live his life. Away from the big top, he'd graduated from carny tricks to petty criminality to the start of a life of serious criminality, the kind that came with greater dangers than getting sent back to a group home -- and he was getting old enough that it would more likely be the Big House if it weren't the Big Top. Not wanting to do time or die young, options which became less of an improbability as his crew's escapades escalated in difficulty, he'd told Barney that he wanted to leave and he'd asked him to come with him, to escape while they still could, and find something else that was exciting and a little crazy and didn't require quite such a fear of law enforcement. Barney had refused, preferring the devil he knew and the devil he'd, so far, gotten to dance to his tune. And so Clint had gone to the recruitment center alone. They didn't see or speak to each for five years, Clint having no idea what had become of Barney or even if he were still alive. Until Sergeant Barton had gotten called into the company commander's office down at Fort Benning to be told that Barney, now blessed with a rap sheet as long as his arm, had graduated from grand theft auto to armed robbery and had been in the pokey up in Grand Forks awaiting extradition to the federal pen in Sandstone, Minnesota (because the dumb fuck had crossed state lines while in the commission of a felony) until he'd gotten free after the marshal who'd been escorting him got into a car crash. Did he have any idea where his brother was or had there been any communication between them? He did not, there had not been, and he'd been of no use whatsoever to the FBI agent now tasked with tracking Barney down, although he'd promised to speak up if that changed.

He didn't, when the time came. Barney had turned up on his doorstep a year or so after that, when he'd been living with Jeannie and thinking of settling down, to ask for money. Clint gave it to him. "He was my older brother," Clint explained with a helpless shrug. "He'd taken care of me when I needed it and couldn't take care of myself."

Clint moved over to Bragg and SF, Jeannie decided that she wasn't ready to marry into the Army, and Barney turned up once more, this time in a diner in Fayetteville and this time with a tail. Clint watched his brother get arrested, unable to do anything and hating himself for his first consideration being whether this would get him kicked off his ODA team. (It didn't.) Barney got a reduced sentence of five years in exchange for testimony against some other crook. Clint sent letters and cards and whatnot, but they were never answered. He visited once to find out why, but Barney had refused the visit. So Clint went on with his life in the Army, then over to SHIELD.

"About a year before they found you, I was on an op in Manila. Drug interdiction, more or less. I'm standing there dressed like an extra from _Miami Vice_ and then out strolls Barney -- the bad guy's muscle. There's a pretty big gap between not taking my calls and blowing my cover, but I'm still nervous because even though I'm his brother, I'm also the reason he did time. 

"He doesn't blow my cover, but he does blow the op sky-high. So I go in the next day, dressed properly for work this time, and I do what I need to do. And Barney does what _he_ needs to do, which is protect his boss. He runs, I chase him, and I catch him, and we brawl like prizefighters. And I ask him what the hell he is wasting his time for with this shit and he tells me to mind my own business and stop thinking I need to save him because he's where he wants to be. And then he wipes some of his boss' 'product' on my open wound and tells me, right before the world goes all funny on me, that if he sees me again, he's going to nark me out."

Clint took a swig of his beer. "Once upon a time, Barney and I were all the other one had. We were everything to each other and we would have died for each other. But shit happens and things change and if we see each other again, there's a good chance it's him or me. So, yeah, I know what the fuck I'm talking about, Steve."

Steve had absorbed Clint's tale of woe leaning against the kitchen counter by the sink with his arms folded across his chest. He stayed there now, gaze moved from Clint toward the floor.

"Now, Barney turned himself into whatever he's become. And James Barnes had no choice in the matter whatsoever, believe me I _know_ , but the fact is that these men are no longer our brothers or our brothers-in-arms and we can't look at them and see the guys we used to know. It will get a lot of people killed."

Steve looked up at him and Clint saw the _calm_ and the peace in his eyes and knew that he had Steve's sympathy and his compassion and his understanding for all that he'd been through, as both brother and victim of Loki's control. But Clint could also see that he hadn't gotten through. This was Steve at his most stubborn, the one who would nod and agree with your logic and reasoning and then go do what he had always intended to do all along. It was part of what made him such a peerless leader of men and it was one of the reasons Clint would follow him anywhere.

He just hoped it wasn't to his death because this? This could very well do it. 

* * *

"So what was here that you weren't going to confess to unless something like this happened?" Clint asked casually as he made his way down the corridor. The hallway was clear of debris, of blood, of the marks of violence that would indicate that the last visitors to make this trek had not come in peace. "Because we both know that this was far too clean for amateurs or tourists and the pros generally aren't working their way into top-secret SHIELD facilities for shits and giggles."

The alarms had gone off at 0349 local time, 0549 back in New York. The facility was heavily guarded and therefore ready to deal with the intruders, at least in theory. In practice, it had been something of a shootout at the OK Corral with casualties on both sides. Three dead SHIELD agents, two dead Tangos, and one Tango currently in surgery so that he could live long enough to be questioned. Clint had gotten called in at 0730, told to pack up his quiver and he would be briefed en route. He wasn't an investigator, but he knew why he was here. The resident expert at breaking into SHIELD holdings, where there was no wound too sacred to salt.

"Tourists," Hill mused into his earpiece from somewhere aboard the Helicarrier. "Come see the wonderful landscape of Buttfuck, Wyoming, where you can watch your dog -- and your hopes and dreams -- run away for three days."

Clint made a sour noise as he tested one of the door keypads. It beeped forlornly at him and he mourned anew the death of the doorknob and tumbler lock. "Spoken by someone who couldn't function outside of an urban environment until it was a job requirement," he said. "Also by someone who is avoiding the question."

There'd been a dozen men total, an egg carton full of black-clad men in balaclavas and carrying an assortment of weapons -- a few Uzis, a few more MP5s, and at least two Gorisecs, the Latverian compact submachine gun -- that spoke to the professionalism of the group. They had the freedom to choose their personal weapons, which meant that they were good enough to _have_ preferences and hadn't all simply been issued what was to hand. (Clint liked all three for different purposes; for this he might have gone with the MP5.) Nine of them had gone home, how empty-handed to be determined. They hadn't carried off anything large, but big problems came in tiny packages these days and there was always data storage.

It was Hill's turn to grunt. "High energy weapon design and testing," she answered begrudgingly. "This is where all of the Tesseract research came after HYDRA started raiding our low- and mid-level security facilities."

Clint cursed aloud and creatively, drawing the attention of a SHIELD security guard walking by in the other direction. He ignored her. "Aren't you getting tired of this shit? Why can't you put a note on the SHIELD Facebook page that says 'we don't have the Tesseract anymore' so that the bad guys will stop showing up armed to try to take it?"

He came to a t-junction and looked right before heading left. The infiltration team had moved as one up until this point and whichever way he went, he would be continuing to follow their path. But there was a little more... _disorder_ on the right, an almost-invisible messiness (from a purely professional standpoint) that Clint wouldn't have been able to describe to Hill if she'd asked him to, that made him think that the primary team had taken the left hallway.

"Of course I'm tired of this shit," Hill agreed with asperity. "But even if we could fly a banner from the Helicarrier that announced to one and all that the Tesseract wasn't even on Earth anymore, who would believe us? We'd sound like the Iranians and their nuclear program."

Clint did not bother to point out that the real problem was more likely that Fury didn't want to confess to having had the thing in the first place, let alone (a) losing it and (b) giving it up. Scuttlebutt said he was catching enough shit from his own bosses, such as they were.

Clint walked down the hallway, mentally running through the routine of route clearance to see what steps the infiltration team had and hadn't taken. This team, Alpha Team in his head, had not bothered with route clearance or security. The closed doors had not been tested, the rooms uncleared, the occupants of those rooms unmolested. Alpha Team had known what they were there for and it wasn't on this level. Bravo Team, the ones who'd taken the hallway leading right, had either had a less defined objective or didn't know precisely how to accomplish it.

Alpha Team's trail went down three levels (by stairs) and then they, too, split into smaller groups, but not equally. Video surveillance, before it was zapped, showed four men going one way and two another. Clint traced the steps of the pair to Erik Selvig's lab, which was entirely unsurprising. Selvig hadn't been on-site, hadn't even been in the state, but he'd left work here and that was what they'd really come for.

"How much of Selvig's stuff is supposed to be here?" Clint asked Hill. The room had been neatly tossed, not the tornado effect you saw in the movies. There'd been no effort to hide exactly what had happened here, but the searching had been organized and thorough and the disruption was orderly -- the stool overturned to see if there was anything taped underneath, but not flung halfway across the room; there were no blizzards of paper or broken glass. Everything had been moved but nothing had been damaged unless it was necessary for the search. Professionals knew that the bigger a mess you made, the harder it was to find what you were looking for.

"His hard copies of notes and diagrams of the Tesseract were there," Hill answered after a long pause. She was not sitting idly at her desk waiting for him to say something; she could hear him, but she had the mic turned off so that he didn't have to listen to whatever the hell Maria Hill did during her day besides ruin everyone else's. "It was supposed to be the most secure place for it unless we wanted to keep it on the Helicarrier, which we didn't want and he certainly didn't want."

Clint snorted his opinion of the decision making that had led to that conclusion. "He's going to have to come down here and do an inventory. There's no way I can tell what has or hasn't been taken. It's all been sifted through, but whether they left it, took pictures of it, or took the whole thing, it's impossible to say."

"Understood," Hill replied. "He's already en route."

Clint spent another seven hours on-site, taking a break in the middle for food, so that he could complete the overlapping missions he'd been assigned. There'd been the action analysis that Hill wanted, the "just tell us it's not HYDRA" work that everyone in senior command wanted, and then there'd been Coulson wanting to know if there were any signs of Latverian involvement. Clint had rolled his eyes at that -- Doom was not about to break into a SHIELD facility on US soil, no matter how brave he got closer to Latveria's borders, and a couple of Gorisecs did not mean anything because they were the weapon of choice for a lot of mess-makers regardless of passport. But Coulson had been insistent because Doom was not shy about his interest in the sorts of things that were being worked on here -- the facility's main official function was (traditional) weapons development; it was the higher-class version of the Mattituck facility. Yang had talked about it as the place where you could make really loud mistakes, as opposed to Mattituck, where any sufficiently loud mistake drew curious phone calls from most of southern Connecticut and all of Suffolk County.

Yang's nostalgia for crater-creation aside, Clint hadn't seen much in the place to be interesting. He'd been able to call "no HYDRA" within the first hour and the Latverian angle was still nebulous -- witnesses reported both Russian and Latverian being spoken, which again did not mean anything because both Russia and Latveria produced mercenary types, most of whom were not working for anyone in their home countries. A corporal in the Latverian Defense Corps could emigrate and find himself being paid like a senior NCO anywhere else; most of them didn't, of course, but it happened enough that Clint wasn't ready to tell Coulson that he might be on to something.

Coulson didn't quit about it until Clint turned his phone off on the plane ride back to New York, which was a tactic he'd used for years against all of his controllers, but Coulson had simply radioed the plane's crew chief and told him to hand over the headset. Except now he couldn't, of course, because he was dead and Agent Martini did not have the rep to pull that kind of rank.

It was two days before the wounded Tango, identified via fingerprints and photo as Leonid Mikhailovich Korolev, ex-Spetsnaz, current employer unknown, was awake enough to answer questions. By that point, Natasha had had time to dig and prepare for the interrogation, which would take place aboard the Helicarrier, in whose secure hospital (as opposed to the main hospital) Korolev was now a resident. Korolev's wounds weren't life-threatening, but he'd lost a lot of blood and been kept on the good drugs for pain management because SHIELD was nice like that.

He was not on the good stuff now, however, because SHIELD was nice, but not when someone had broken into their facility and killed some of their people.

Clint was in on the interrogation not because he had any particular questions to ask, just that SHIELD policy forbade any unwitnessed interrogations and everyone figured Nat would mind Clint least. He could have told them that it wouldn't have mattered who was there so long as they kept their mouth shut and sat still.

His last time in this section of the Helicarrier had been when _he_ 'd been a resident, which nobody but Natasha seemed to remember. It bothered Clint, but not a whole lot. He'd been here for precautionary reasons by the time he'd been brought in and treated with respect and faith by his teammates -- including Steve, who had zero reason to at that point -- even if the security forces had made sure he hadn't even looked out the barred door cut-out too long.

Here and now, Natasha started the session by turning off the painkiller drip and explaining that telling the truth quickly was the best way to a restful night. "You've got about twenty minutes before you're really going to start to feel it," she said casually in Russian. "You've got an hour before you sweat through your sheets. You'll be crying by two hours. After that, you're just going to be a mess and I'm going to have to cancel my manicure, so let's not go that far, okay?"

Korolev called her a few names and suggested a few anatomically difficult activities, but he did so without heat and Natasha took them as a standard opening move in the chess game they were beginning, one she was disappointed by but willing to work through.

Nat's problem, quickly stated by Korolev, was that she couldn't actually kill him, which made threats of violence pointless. He could deal with the pain of his wounds, he promised. He would shake, he would cry, he would wish she could kill him, but he'd endure. "Your manicure will be lost for nothing," he assured. "Nick Fury didn't have me sewn back together for you to tear me apart so quickly."

He seemed a little too smug about that for someone up against an individual who probably had a thousand ways to hurt him without needing a crash cart, but Clint was here for observation purposes only and did not feel the need to speak up about that.

"Dearest Lenya," Natasha sighed with amusement. "I don't need to kill you. Certainly not here, where there'd be paperwork and long lectures from several people about me not breaking any more of my toys. I'm patient, too, and I'm smarter than you are and I know better than to threaten you with death by my hand. Or by Hawkeye's hands."

Clint dutifully waved from his position in a padded chair by the blood pressure machine.

"Instead, I will ask you a reasonable number of times to answer my questions," she went on, "and then I will tell Fury that you're of no use to us. And then I'll make a phone call to Anatoli Vorodin and tell him where we're dropping you off."

Korolev started there, eying her warily. Clint had no idea who Vorodin was, but clearly Korolev did not relish the prospect of seeing him again.

"Piss me off enough and I'll tell him you squealed, too," she added almost as an afterthought. Korolev, already pale from his wounds, got a few shades whiter. "I'll tell him you told me about Snowdrift."

Korolev shook his head. "You're bluffing. You don't even know what Snowdrift was."

Natasha laughed. "Darling, I've known all about it for years. I can give him all kinds of details that would have only come from you. Names, dates, targets... I'll start with Tellberg, in '93, I think it was. Don't worry, I'll double-check before I bring it up."

Korolev was not smug any more. He was a man, Clint thought, who was realizing he was a mouse in a game of tag with a tiger.

Natasha stood up. "I'm going to get a soda. You take some time to think things through and I'll come back in a little bit and we'll see what you feel like talking about." She started to walk toward the door and Clint rose to follow her, shrugging helplessly at Korolev, whose eyes followed him. Wasn't a thing he could -- or would -- do here.

Natasha had her hand outstretched to place on the biometric scanner when Korolev called her back. She gave Clint a blink-and-you'll-miss-it smile before turning back to her prey.

"What do I get in return?"

Natasha sat back down with a benevolent smile that quickly grew cold. "Nothing," she told him, steel in her voice. "You killed three of my people. You left five children without fathers. You took things that were not yours to take. Your best hope is to start talking and hope that at some point, when you've got no voice and no secrets left to share, I forget Vorodin's number."

Korolev shook his head. "That's not good enough," he replied, very calm for someone bargaining for his life. "I'm not going to let myself get turned into a football kicked between two Red Room operatives without something in it for me."

Clint sat up a little and so did Natasha. But Korolev was done talking for now.

"You don't have the authorization to make any kind of promises you can keep," Korolev told Natasha. "Go talk to Fury and then come back here."

And then he reached out with a shaking hand to turn the painkiller drip back on, then leaned back with a pained grunt and closed his eyes.

Clint followed Natasha out the door, out of the hospital, and into the hallway.

"Well that was unintentionally enlightening," Clint mused as they walked toward the elevator. He wasn't sure if she was going up to Fury or down to spar or somewhere else, but he knew he had to follow her for now, at least until she told him to go away and meant it. He knew how she got when the Red Room came into play -- she was always edgy after dealing with Russian ex-government types, but bring in the Red Room and the door on her closet full of ghosts started to rattle. "Or was it intentional?"

"I don't think he realized what he was handing over," Natasha said, eyes burning as she glared at the closed elevator doors. "Telling me that someone from the Red Room was involved is as good as telling me who it is. We trained together, studied each other, learned how to work together. We can read each other's moves like sign language."

"Are you sure he didn't know that?"

The doors open and Clint went in before Natasha could and pushed the button for the deck with the commissary. Sometimes, Natasha could be sufficiently distracted from her moods by the proper application of good food, which the commissary did not have, or junk food, which it had in abundance. And, if that failed, he hadn't had lunch and if she had a very strong urge to beat someone (him) up, he'd rather do it after eating.

"For Army guys, even Spetsnaz guys like Korolev, the Red Room holds a mystique," she answered, not pushing a different elevator button, so she'd at least come along peacefully. "What the Monster Factory was to the Red Room, the Red Room was to everyone else. We all came out of there terrifying and successful and incomprehensible. He was lumping us together, not handing me a bone or throwing me off the scent."

The commissary was serving banana splits and Natasha ordered one with pistachio and chocolate ice creams, covering it with nut sauce and cherries and only getting one spoon, which meant Clint wasn't getting to share. On the bright side, it also meant that he probably wasn't going to get the shit kicked out of him later, either.

Natasha didn't go up to Fury afterward, instead heading off to the video rooms to rewatch the footage from Wyoming. And, apparently, to also turn her cell phone off, which was why Clint's started ringing. Fury and Hill wanted updates. Clint recapped what had gone on, telling them to talk to Natasha if they wanted more, and then turned his own off and went down to the well deck to see about a lift back to the surface. He missed the days when the Helicarrier was docked in New York Harbor all of the time and there were water ferries with frequent enough departures that escape was more or less always at hand. Now it required a quinjet that only left when enough people were waiting around to go, which meant Clint had time to kill because the next scheduled departure was in two hours.

He killed it in the Avengers' team room playing the latest Sly Cooper game. Tony was rarely ever in the room, but if he was stuck aboard the Helicarrier for any reason, he wanted a top-flight gaming system and so theirs was always getting upgraded.

There was no need to go up to the Helicarrier the next day; he had mission prep work to do at 44th Street and anyone who needed to reach him could do so securely there. He got to pass the day unmolested, however, except for an email from Steve, currently in San Diego doing something at Pendleton, asking him to look up a detail about Minié rifles (because he was sure Wikipedia was wrong; Steve could still get upset by someone being wrong on the internet) and inviting him and Natasha over for dinner on Friday.

Friday afternoon, Natasha stormed into the carrel he was using in the library and pulled the headphones off his ears before dragging a chair over from the next station.

"The hell, Nat?" Clint griped. He'd already had to watch this video four times to pick out the words spoken and he still didn't have all of them. A Yemeni accent, mumbled by a guy missing teeth and sitting too far away from the video camera, was like Charlie Brown's teacher.

"It's him," she said, leaning forward on her elbows.

"Who's him and what are you talking about?" 

"In Wyoming," she replied with an eye-roll because apparently this was supposed to be obvious. It wasn't obvious to him -- he'd been done with that mission since leaving Korolev's bedside and was on to the next one. "It's Yasha."

It was his turn to sigh. "Are you sure you're not just seeing what you want to see?" He held his hands up to ward off her rebuttal, which at this proximity might have cost him a tooth. "I'm not implying that you don't know what you're doing. But I am more than implying that you have the Winter Soldier on the brain and it's affecting your judgment."

Natasha got up and made a disgusted noise as she made a tight circuit behind the chair she'd vacated. "I'm not seeing things and I'm not mistaken. One of the two men who went into Selvig's office was Yasha Yachmenev."

"Who is employed by a vor v zakonye in St. Petersburg, which makes him an unlikely candidate for breaking into SHIELD facilities in the middle of the US," Clint replied, more to see if Natasha actually had something than as a counter-factual. Yasha had been hired out by Schmidt for Minyar, so someone else with a ton of money could probably get him as well. The vor Yasha was affiliated with, Filiakov, wasn't above pimping out his best man.

"I have a list of half a dozen men who have the cash and the cache to hire him like Schmidt did," Natasha said, sitting back down. "And that's just this afternoon's work. The firefight he got into on the fourth sublevel was eight against two. He killed Loran and Hennesey, wounded three others, and then killed his own wounded teammate before he escaped past a dozen more agents. How many people do you know who could do that?"

She didn't wait for him to answer, although they both knew that the response was "not many."

"I know his moves, Clint," she pressed on. "He trained me and then we worked together. He might as well have been writing his name in neon."

He closed his eyes and held up his hands once more, this time in surrender. "I'm not the one you're going to have to convince," he reminded her. "If you want my backing before you go to Fury and tell him you want to chase this wild goose, you have it. But I want you to be damned sure, okay?"

A tight nod from Natasha. "I am."

"Fine," Clint agreed, since he could hardly do otherwise at this juncture. He'd let her show him the video and talk him into it -- she knew he wasn't convinced yet. "But we are going over to Steve's in a few hours and you had better not breathe a word of this to him."

Another nod, not quite as firm, but firm enough. As sure as she was for herself, she understood what that chance of her being wrong would do to Steve, who was handling all of this far less well than he was pretending to. He'd struggle with it enough if she turned out to be right.

"We have to stop at Dominique Ansel before we go," she said as she stood up. "I ordered an extra-large DKA."

Clint rolled his eyes, but nodded.

Before it was time to pack up for the day, he watched the video five more times, making the wah-wah-wah noise as he tried to lip-read. He mostly got what was being said, but there was no way the unintelligible words would turn out to be unimportant ones.

He sang The Royal Guardsmen's "Snoopy vs the Red Baron" all the way to the bakery, much to Natasha's annoyance.


	3. Chapter 3

Clint sat in the theater with his Milk Duds and his soda watching the big robots run rampage on downtown LA until the hero came to the rescue, blasting the robots from the sky before they could threaten any more civilians, but not before they could take out the edifice of the Chinese Theatre. There was the requisite screaming and running and the small child toddling blissfully ignorantly straight into the path of danger.

Except instead of the rousing musical score, there was the less-than-rousing commentary by Tony Stark. Because this was not a Hollywood blockbuster. This was what had happened on Hollywood Boulevard this afternoon.

"This is what I mean, right here," Tony said as the footage paused, the cameras on one of the AIM mecha spiders Clint hadn't seen in action since Minyar. "The most logical course of action here would be for the spider to go _around_ the pink Prius and continue toward La Brea. But, as you'll see, it doesn't do that. It pauses, picks up the front end of the Prius, pushes it away, and _then_ continues on toward La Brea."

The footage started to roll again as Tony spoke.

"I can pull out a dozen other examples," he went on as the cameras watched the spiders stomping west, "but the bottom line is that these guys used to be a lot smarter and more efficient. Taking out a half-dozen of them without an EMP wasn't a one-man job back in Minyar or New York."

The attack had started at 1530 local time and been over by 1649; Iron Man had arrived on scene by 1545 -- Tony had already been suited up and had been trying out a new thingamabob over the Pacific by Santa Monica when Jarvis had relayed the info. Police presence had been almost as quick, but they'd been part of the problem for the first little bit because they, like almost everyone else who'd been there, had thought the entire thing was a movie shoot. A belief that Iron Man's arrival did not seem to change. The screaming people running for their lives were maybe extras, the explosions rigged by effects teams, and the destruction of property presumably licensed and approved of by the City of Los Angeles and its motion picture office.

It had been almost two years since the Triple Bombings and there were apparently two separate movies about it in production, but that was no excuse for the metric assload of stupidity on display, Clint had announced to the room at large as they'd watched the footage through the first time. He hadn't been around when it started -- most of the New York City staff hadn't been because it was after hours. He had been at B&H scouting out photo equipment when his phone had gone off and had gotten to 44th Street in to catch most of it live, though. Steve and Corrales and most of the others who'd been summoned had either missed the live events entirely or come in at the end. Once they'd realized that it had, indeed, been the end and that there would be no flying across the country to battle more mechas, they watched it all from the beginning with a critical eye and none of the fear of what would happen next. Just a sort of weary resignation that HYDRA was still a going concern and boggling at the fucking morons who put themselves in harm's way so that they could take pictures with their phones -- one of the fatalities had died taking a picture.

But in between the snark and the sighs, they'd watched with critical professional eyes, which was why Tony's assertion that the mechas were acting suspiciously had been greeted by murmurs of agreement instead of exclamations of surprise. They'd all fought the robotic bugs at least once -- except for the analysts, who'd watched others fight the bugs at least once -- and were used to how they acted and reacted.

"Is this a consequence of us taking out most of HYDRA's tech support?" Hill asked, a disembodied voice in stereo surround sound as she was still aboard the Helicarrier, which was somewhere around Oklahoma. The advantage of the Helicarrier being airborne was that it could head toward trouble straightaway, even if that trouble never fully manifested. Apparently they were going to continue to California anyway and put in an appearance. Clint wondered if the folks in LA would think it was a movie, too.

"No," Tony replied. "This wasn't a new phase of HYDRA terrorism. This was a sales pitch."

A general murmur filled the theater and Clint looked over at Steve, who was looking something up on his tablet and didn't notice. Corrales, on the other side of Steve, did and returned a shrug. They'd all wondered why there had been no swarms of navy-clad cannon fodder to accompany the mechas -- HYDRA still existed in a very real way, attracting new converts and continuing its efforts to become a non-state actor of the first order. They had taken a beating, PR-wise, after Minyar, but they'd been true to their name and were surviving and thriving no matter how many heads SHIELD thought they'd cut off. Detangling themselves even further from their WWII past and pushing forward as a radical force for humanity's betterment had done them favors they did not deserve. SHIELD was getting better at dealing with them, but that was not to be confused with feeling comfortable with the new status quo. HYDRA hadn't tried an attack on US soil since the Triple Bombings, but nobody had confused that with them not being around, even if SHIELD was pretty sure they'd wiped out all of the large established bases in the US and Canada.

"What do you mean 'sales pitch'?" Steve asked, looking up from what he was doing on his tablet, which was apparently pull up the file on the San Jose raid he hadn't gone on because he'd been springing Clint from prison in Kansas. Which in turn had been the first time anyone had encountered the mechas, although not apparently the first time anyone had encountered Tony's barf cannon.

"Exactly what it sounds like," Tony replied as the images on the screen changed to a shot of one of the gigantic cockroach variants looking like it was cycling through its functions -- or its remote control was going berserk. "I've run more than my share of sales demos for buyers. This is the full monty, what you do for the sale so big you won't have to worry about the bottom line for the rest of the fiscal year."

"Who's the buyer?" Fury asked and Clint knew the answer before Tony said a word.

"This is playing for government money," Tony replied. "There isn't a non-state actor in the world except for pre-Minyar HYDRA that could afford to make such a buy."

Somewhere, Coulson was nodding smugly and Clint hoped this wasn't going to get him punted back to Syria or some other shithole of similar chaos.

"What about this just being a show of strength?" Steve asked, flipping the cover over his tablet. "A morale booster for the loyal rank and file or simply a pointed reminder that we didn't destroy them in Russia?"

Tony made a noise that was him indicating that he thought Steve was a little right and a little more wrong. "I'm sure all of that factored into their choice of venue," he agreed. "But I know a hard sell when I see one and this was the defense industry equivalent of a hotel room full of hookers and blow. Not that the defense industry doesn't also do that, but this was a pitch that says 'we know you're going to buy, but we'd like you to buy even bigger than you planned because you can afford it.'"

"Which brings us back to which governments were they pitching to," Hill mused. "We've all probably got our list of favorites, but--"

Clint sighed. Might as well get it over with. "I think we can skip past Iran and move on to Latveria," he said. "HYDRA wouldn't have the balls to try to sell this shit to Russia, not after the goat rodeo in Minyar. Iran would bankrupt itself for a chance to march those bugs into Tel Aviv or Baghdad, but they know they'd never survive the purchase -- we'd invade for attacking LA and the Israelis would help because they know what the mullahs want those things for."

"China," someone behind him called out. "They'd want these and they can afford to pay for them. They could dare us to call them on it with all of the money we owe them. They're pretty much doing it anyway on the fact that we knew there were HYDRA bases all over their western provinces -- that there still are."

"The Chinese would have been a great choice if HYDRA hadn't done damage to a US city," Hill replied. "Nobody gives a crap if they're raping African countries for resources, but downtown LA is another story. It runs the risk of turning global opinion against them and getting the US back into good graces and they can't afford that right now."

"And Latveria can?"

"Doom knows we're not going to invade Latveria or bomb it to rubble over nine dead and a couple million in damages," Hill answered. "Iran has to worry because this would be a pretext for something we'd love to do -- and the Israelis will probably end up having to do anyway. But Latveria will just end up being sued and shunned and they don't give a crap about either. They don't respect the International Court of Justice's jurisdiction any more than the US does -- less, even."

"Before we get too far ahead of ourselves," Fury cut in. "It would be nice to have some actual evidence for these conclusions you are all very willing to draw. We have already invaded a country on faulty intel and a lot of very logical speculation and, as some of you will remember quite intimately, it did not go as we'd hoped."

Two weeks later, they got their evidence.

The satellite footage was clear and crisp despite it being at night and from orbit. Two tractor trailers left a heretofore unknown HYDRA base in southwestern Serbia -- the Balkans Desk was currently not Fury's favorite child -- and drove northeast through the night toward the Latverian border. There was no footage of them crossing it -- the window on that particular satellite closed too soon -- but it was enough to be the start of something. And to summon the Avengers, at least in part, in for a meeting.

Clint was unsurprised to find Natasha and Steve already at the conference table when he arrived five minutes before the appointed summoning time, but he was a little surprised to see Tony, whose Avengers activities tended to be restricted to crises and this didn't quite qualify. Maybe he was here to answer the tech questions. Or else maybe it was just Tapper sending a message; the two of them were not yet past the dick measuring competitions, even after all this time. Tony didn't seem too put out to be there, though, and was entertaining himself by giving Steve crap about refusing to reprise his old USO routine for the still-in-the-planning-stages Stark Expo.

"I told you before," Steve replied without looking up from his notes, "no flying car, no Star Spangled Man."

Clint beamed with an almost paternal pride as he sat down next to Natasha.

"I'll get you a new bike," Tony countered. "I'll _build_ you a new bike. It will be the James Bond Aston Martin of Harley Davidsons. Lasers, chaff, battering ram..."

"Will it fly?"

Tony frowned at Steve, who was still looking at his tablet. "If you have a ramp, yes."

"Then it doesn't count."

Tony glared, but his actual response was never to be heard because the conference room door swooshed open and, along with Tapper and Hill and Fury and the small posse of analysts who'd waited meekly in the anteroom for permission to enter, in walked Coulson.

Clint was unsurprised at Tony's drop-jawed stare, but he was maybe a little surprised that Steve didn't do more than nod at Coulson when he sat down across from him. The analysts did not sit at the table, instead scattering themselves along the outer ring of seats that lined the walls and pulling out laptops or tablets.

"You're remarkably fresh and unputrefied for a guy who's been dead for so many years," Tony said archly. Tony was stunned, but not so stunned that he wouldn't notice that nobody else was reacting. "Pepper's going to be very upset with you. Relieved, of course, but terribly upset with you."

"I'll apologize to her personally," Coulson replied sincerely. Clint wondered how many apologies Coulson had been making as he'd made his way up to the 19th floor conference room. This was his first visit to a SHIELD facility -- he hadn't been back aboard the Helicarrier since he'd 'died' there -- and a tiny bit of Clint felt bad for him for running that gauntlet. But most of him remembered his own furious reaction in Lebanon and thought Coulson deserved everything he got.

Fury took his place at the head of the table. "We are here today to discuss Latveria and its quest for HYDRA weapons," he began. "Agent Coulson, who has been leading this investigation for the last two years, is our in-house expert."

"A report from beyond the grave," Tony exclaimed with false excitement. "How positively spooky."

Coulson gave good briefing. He always had. His dry sense of humor and dislike of wasting time meant that information was delivered straightforwardly, with the occasional wry aside, and in terms that were both easy to understand and actionable. Which, when it came to the sheer quantity of information on everything Latveria had been up to in technology and weapons acquisition in the last five years, was a godsend.

"Doom's most valuable asset is this man," Coulson said, finger-flicking an image from his tablet to the large projection screen. "Aleksander Lukin. Former KGB and FSB and former protege of Vasily Karpov's, which means he's a kissing cousin, spy-wise, of Putin's. The two know where each other buried bodies and probably buried a few together."

Next to Clint, Natasha snorted, which he took to mean that the truth was closer to it being neither "probably" nor "a few."

"Lukin was very good at his job and enjoyed a great deal of power in Russia, but he left the FSB in 1998, a few months before Yeltsin announced Putin was his choice as successor. Putin became President, Lukin became a businessman, and they both got very wealthy by helping each other out. But as Putin's power grew, Lukin must have sensed something because he picked up stakes and moves his business and his family to Doomstadt in 2003, which has kept him safe from the periodic accidents and misfortunes and _difficulties_ that have plagued certain of Russia's oligarchs, both local and expat.

"Doom is at least consistent," Coulson said with a ghost of a grin. "We can't get into Latveria and neither can the Russians. Lukin's security is impressive, but it's largely unnecessary inside Latveria unless he pisses off Doom, which is unlikely to happen at this stage. And so while his family enjoys the high quality of life that comes with being rich in Latveria, his business, Kronas Industries, has evolved from being reliant on the benefices from Russian natural resources to becoming the third-largest shipping and logistics firm in the world."

"Before anyone asks," Tony spoke up, "yes, we do a ton of business with them. They're expensive, but for some of the places we need to move things through, they are the only reliable option. Kronas arms their freighters to the teeth and puts ex-military types at the triggers and they are the only major cargo shipper that hasn't had a piracy problem and can get into any port in the world without fear."

"In exchange for Kronas having a near-monopoly on Latverian logistics," Coulson picked up, "Lukin uses his connections to get Doom what he needs. Which means that while the trucks moving through Serbia weren't Kronas, they were probably contracted for by Lukin one way or another."

A grumble around the room because the origin point of those trucks was still unknown and the Balkans Desk was very much still not Fury's favorite child.

"Lukin's not an idiot and Doom's not unreasonable," Coulson cut in on the muttering. "Victor von Doom is methodical, patient, and brilliant. He is not going to burn an asset as useful as Lukin, even for something like this. And Lukin, who has been so good at moving below the radar since he left Russia, is still one of the best spies the Soviets ever produced. There are very good reasons why we don't know more than we do just yet."

Which was more or less a pat on the head and a "nice try," for the Balkans Desk and the field agents they'd been running, but also a clear warning that it was now time to let the big kids play.

Natasha was the obvious person to shake trees on Lukin -- she knew the man personally -- and Clint was unsurprised to be tasked once again with continuing his search for the likeliest routes for toys into Latveria. Steve was told he was going right back to raiding HYDRA bases in South America, which he took about as well as could be expected.

"Exactly what skills am I lacking to be a good fit for this mission?" he asked after Fury made, in Clint's opinion, a startlingly poor phrase selection. "Subterfuge? Intelligence?"

"It's not what you don't have," Fury replied, backing off while trying not to seem like he was backing off -- and failing miserably. Clint understood why Steve was being kept where he was, but he also understood why Steve was pissed about it and, really, Fury should have known better by now. "It's about putting what you _do_ have to maximal use. We need you as the public face of the fight against HYDRA because they are doing a damned good job of making the world forget that they have spent the better part of eighty years screwing it up. We are storming into sovereign nations and raiding camps that the host nations knew existed and, in many cases, invited in. You are the best tactical commander we have on any direct action team and _that_ is why you are continuing with that mission instead of skulking around networking with the underworld."

"You'd better be getting a flying car out of this if they want you to sing and dance for the cameras, Cap," Tony piped up. "Because I refuse to consider that you might be giving SHIELD a better deal than the one you offered me."

Fury glared at Tony, who shrugged nonchalantly. Steve seethed but said nothing, the good soldier winning -- for now -- against his pride and his frustration.

The meeting petered out quickly from there -- there was too much tension for any more light conversation and the heavy information had already been disseminated. Clint knew better than to say anything to Steve at this point, so he went down to Travel and started wheedling his way into a business class seat for the trip to Egypt, the starting point of his search this time around.

* * *

Another country, another rebellion, another set of protesters whose actions made it hard to side with the enemy of your enemies.

"I speak Russian," Clint groused as he backed up his motorbike so that he could U-turn away from yet another blocked-off street. Cairo was a fucking disaster to drive in at the best of times -- which was why he was on the glorified dirtbike instead of a car in the middle of summer -- but with half of the population out in the streets protesting, it had acquired an entirely new level of difficulty. Even driving on sidewalks and taking alleyways and other routes not meant for motorized transport, he'd spent more than an hour going less than four kilometers. "I could go to London and drink warm beer and knock SVR heads together as well as Natasha can. I'd even look like a local."

He cursed in Arabic as he realized that the protesters -- or maybe the Army -- had flanked him on the left and he would either have to double back or go through an alleyway that he knew ended in a staircase. Motorbikes on stairs was something that worked in the movies, but wasn't something he was willing to deal with short of an imminent threat to his life. Which there wasn't, although his sanity was a different story.

"Don't say such things about my mother's goat," Coulson chided via the phone set in Clint's helmet. "You've never met it and cannot speak to either its parentage or its morals. As for the rest, you know someone needs to wander around the armpits of the Middle East and you're the best man for it."

He was, which was not as much of a sop to his ego as to take his mind off of his current misery. The fastest way to get to Alexandria from Cairo was to take the highway that went directly between the two cities, especially since it broke into Alexandria near the port, which was his ultimate destination. But the path to it in Cairo meant getting over to the west side of the city and that was going to be his undoing. He'd had to stop in Cairo first to work a few connections and pick up some things else he'd have saved himself the trouble. It's not like he hadn't known what kind of chaos was going to be waiting for him. 

Six hours later, he was in Alexandria, pulling over at the edge of a souk so he could buy water and freshly deep-fried eel on a stick from an old guy sitting next to a kettle of bubbling oil and a cooler full of eel. He didn't like eel anywhere but here, not even in Japan, but in the half-dozen or so times he'd been to Alexandria, the fried eel on a stick had become something of a tradition.

He found a small inn not too close to the water where he could safely wash the road off of him and sleep for a few hours before the night's activities. Alexandria was restive, but not the roiling seethe of Cairo and Clint wasn't worried about either his own safety or the disruption of the kind of business he was there to conduct. The port and the coast were almost like a different country than the rest of Egypt, especially right now. It was still maddening in the way Middle Eastern cities often were, but Alexandria had always looked out to the ocean and the world beyond the waves.

After a nap and another shower, he got dressed for work. He packed his things in case he needed to leave in a hurry and took the bike to the east harbor, away from the commercial shipping side of the massive complex. His first visits would be to the smugglers and the fishermen (often one and the same) and the local traders who knew everything about everything if only the right price could be named. Starting with one in particular. He went straight to One-Armed Mohammed not because One-Armed Mo was his best source of information, but instead because One-Armed Mo had the most _wasta_ around here and to not do so would be a grave insult and make the rest of his trip here difficult, if not pointless.

One-Armed Mo was exactly where Clint thought he would be, which was the seafood restaurant with the world's saddest plastic octopus outside the door. Clint had shown up one time to find the octopus with a note around its neck - or what passed for the neck on a plastic octopus -- proclaiming him to be a prominent member of Mubarak's inner circle. There'd been Egyptian pounds stuck to each arm. It had been pretty provocative, considering that Ole Hosni had been very much in control at the time, which had been the point -- One-Armed Mo had nothing to fear.

Clint greeted Mo like a long-lost brother when he was shown to the back booth where Mo held court. Once upon a time, Clint had introduced himself as a Canadian mercenary (when he'd really been a US Army SFC in town on official USG business) and Mo hadn't really believed him then, but also hadn't made an issue out of it, either. The fiction had stood through Clint's transition from the Army to SHIELD, but it had probably reached the end of even the merest plausibility after the Battle of New York and every schmuck had seen footage of the guy with the arrows. But by that point, Mo understood what Clint really did and how truly dangerous he really was and thus how much good it did them both if Clint turned up and showed respect to the prince of the port of Alexandria and he accepted it as his due.

They drank arrak and ate kofta kebabs and salt-baked fish and discussed the plight of the Brotherhood and how the Egyptian Army had possibly bitten off more than they could chew this time around, despite both of them knowing that Clint was here for a reason and didn't have time to dawdle. Because this was just how things worked in this part of the world. By the time the coffee and sweets were brought out -- there was a reason Clint hadn't eaten beforehand -- they'd more or less gotten around to why Clint had turned up after more than a year since his last visit.

"I don't care about who's moving shit in and out of Libya or up the Nile," Clint explained because he didn't want Mo to think that this was any kind of gunrunning cleanup. The Egyptians were always a little paranoid about the US meddling, a paranoia made even worse by the Brotherhood's insistence that the current coup had been an American idea. "I need your advice on who to talk to over on the other side of the port about how things move north. Big things, not crates of AKs and RPGs."

Mo looked at him thoughtfully, his eyes not even the least bit glassy after so much arrak. "Northeast?"

Clint shook his head and fought back a smile because if it wasn't an American plot, it was an Israeli one. "Northwest."

Mo plucked another candied fruit from the bowl and chewed it thoughtfully. After washing it down with another shot, he nodded. "I give you a name, you do something for me."

It wasn't stated as a question.

"Depends, but if I can, sure," Clint replied. Mo's quid pro quos usually revolved around cash or contraband, although once upon a time Mo had asked Clint to kill someone for him. Clint had told him that what he was asking for was not worth spending time in an Egyptian prison and Mo had shrugged as if to say that it hadn't hurt to ask.

"CIA station chief in Alexandria is a man named Ferguson," Mo said. "He keeps going in to my cousin's place near the El Rasafa metro station. It's bad for business."

The last words were emphasized in a way to make it clear that it was not the sale of kebabs Mo was worried about.

Clint made like he was considering it, then nodded. "Done."

The Alexandria station chief was not Ferguson, who was probably just a foreign service officer at the consulate. But Clint could certainly pass on the word through Coulson that it would be better if Ferguson found someplace else to eat -- and that the actual station chief, DiFrancesco, was made aware.

Mo gave him three names, along with an explanation and a rough description of each. He also made it clear that if anything were to happen to these three men in the course of a very civilized discussion, he would not mind. They did a final drink together and then Mo shooed him away, mocking his rush to get things done and expressing the hope, inshallah, that they would see each other soon. Clint inshallah'ed right back and smiled politely at the young man at the counter who gave him back his gun and the knife that had been found on the pat-down. (There'd been one missed that Clint had felt no obligation to confess to.)

Back outside, Clint relayed what he'd learned to Coulson, including the bit about Ferguson, on his way back to his bike. He'd originally thought he might need to do a general canvass for information -- in case Mo hadn't been around, hadn't known, or hadn't been willing to help -- but he thought he had enough to work with for tonight. He wasn't convinced that Lukin would be moving anything through Alexandria in the first place, but it would depend on where they were coming from -- HYDRA had (still had) a lot of safe harbors in Africa, although mostly not in the Maghreb. Kronas had offices and a warehouse in Alexandria, of course, and he'd check it out regardless of what he learned from anyone, but his instinct said that Lukin was moving things through Europe.

By dawn, Clint was on his way back to the inn, secure in the knowledge that his instincts had been correct: Alexandria was a dry hole as far as HYDRA weapons went. They'd been moved through Egypt up until about when Mubarak had been deposed, although that had been used as a timestamp and not a cause-and-effect connection. Kronas moved a lot through Alexandria, not all of it a hundred percent above board, but Mo's suggested sources had been honest about why it was unlikely that something like HYDRA tech would be stored or docked in Egypt nowadays: the new head of the port was incredibly corrupt even by local standards and he was a bully as well, prone to opening containers on "spot inspections" and turning even the simplest transactions and paperwork into never-ending epics if his generous offer of expediting matters (for a small gratuity, of course) had been refused. Kronas was willing to go along with modest requests for baksheesh here as elsewhere, but the requests were not modest for a company the size of Kronas and the reprisals were not tolerable and Kronas had been rerouting everything it could up to Gioia Tauro in Italy until this problem disappeared. All five of the men Clint talked to -- the three on Mo's list and two hangers-on -- had agreed that it would be a problem that would go away sooner than later; the portmaster was the nephew of an Army general, true, but Kronas was not the only company bridling at the new regime and that kind of loss of income would not be tolerated for long.

Clint slept through most of the day, getting up in the afternoon to eat and find out that there was no easy way to get from Alex to Gioia Tauro. There wasn't a way to fly without making at least two stops with long layovers and, no, going to Tunis and then taking a ferry would not be faster. Driving back to Cairo would make things easier, Coulson told him, but Clint wasn't sure how the words in that sentence meant what Coulson thought they meant and said so. 

"Be nice or I route you through Istanbul," Coulson warned.

A drive back to Cairo and a short layover (in Rome) later, Clint was on a different motorcycle driving south from Catanzano to Gioia Tauro. He'd spent the flight reading the briefing put together for him by Agent LoDuca, one of the organized crime specialists, about the ‘Ndrangheta and their complete control of the port and the city, so now he had to figure out a plan of action to deal with them. The simplest thing to do would be to replicate what he'd done in Alexandria and go talk to the local don and see what arrangements could be made for this kind of information -- it would have a price, just as doing any other kind of business there would. There was a good chance Clint would not be able to meet that price, though -- unlike One-Armed Mo, the 'Ndrangheta bosses were dealing directly with the shipping companies and the labor unions (they _were_ the labor unions) and Clint would very likely be bidding against whatever price Lukin was paying for Kronas to move easily in the port. It would not necessarily be money that would be asked of him; if he announced himself as an agent of any organization serious enough to treat with, there would be an in-kind element that would be just as exorbitant. 

The less-simple plans all involved making himself an enemy of the 'Ndrangheta and while Clint wasn't particularly worried about his own personal safety there, it would make things more complicated in the long run even if he didn't spend much time in Italy in the future. 

LoDuca's report did have one kernel of intel that might make the simple plan a little more feasible: the 'Ndrangheta as a whole had no love for HYDRA, keeping the entirety of Calabria clear of any presence, and the great-niece of the 'ndrina boss of the town next to the port had been killed in London during the Triple Bombings. It would hopefully be enough. 

"They're less confrontational with authority than the Sicilians," Coulson pointed out. "You'll probably live long enough to get to that part of the story once they find out that you've got a badge." 

Clint was not overjoyed at the prospect of stumbling into mafia hangouts and asking to see the boss -- it was a good way to get roughed up (at best) -- but lacking better options, that's what he ended up doing. His arm got twisted hard enough to make his shoulder ache at his first stop and it required two more until he got to talk to someone who would talk to him about the port, but at the third stop he was told to come back the next evening. 

The next evening, Clint was subjected to some more mild indignities and a pat-down that found both knives as well as relieving him of his Glock, but he got to talk to someone. This someone was not the person he really wanted to talk to, but he was someone who did talk to that person, which considering he was coming in cold was something he could work with. Most of the discussion was about what Clint didn't want and couldn't have, which was anything about drugs or local politicians, and then on to what he did want and wasn't sure he could get. 

"I want HYDRA," he said, not for the first time. "The rest of it is your business and you can deal with it as you see fit."

It was another long back-and-forth before Clint made it sufficiently clear that he didn't think the 'Ndrangheta was willfully allowing HYDRA purchase in their territory, that it was a third-party operation he was interested in, and that it wasn't a failure on the part of the local 'ndrina that these things were going on at Gioia Tauro. 

The locals were a lot less interested in an otherwise well-regarded (i.e., prompt in payment and uninterested in causing trouble) business that happened to be transporting HYDRA equipment than they were in the idea that HYDRA might have tried to sneak in to southern Italy, but Clint dropped the name of the great-niece of the neighboring 'ndrina boss and that, more than anything else, got him an appointment the next night with the boss. 

During the day, Clint slept and exercised and ventured out for meals, aware without seeing anything in particular that he was being watched. There wasn't a lot to do in the town; it had an odd feeling of failure about it and was run down at the edges. It wasn't picturesque the way coastal Italian cities were supposed to be and there wasn't much to look at. He ate well, though, and the penzione he was staying in was clean and comfortable and didn't go to too great lengths to rifle through his things while he was out. He caught up on his email, which included a picture from Steve of the dismantling of the Astro Tower at Coney Island, and an email from Natasha asking about an ex-SAS guy who said he had worked with Clint and could he be trusted. Clint replied to her that yes, Ian could be trusted as far as work went, but he was a bit disbelieving when women told him they weren't interested, so consider drawing a weapon first. 

At the appointed time, Clint showed up at the appointed place. He'd rode by the place earlier in the day, when it had looked much of a piece with the rest of the city -- it had seen better days, although there was some dignity left. But he'd maybe misjudged both the dignity and the interior because when he showed up to go inside, he felt distinctly underdressed in his black jeans and boots. He was patted down again -- they were looking for wires, he realized, more than weapons -- in a discreet vestibule by the front door and then shown into the main dining room, which was well-lit and well-cared-for and crowded with diners sitting at tables laden down with food.

He was not shown to a booth in a dark corner of the room, but instead to a table in the middle of the dining room. This was what kind of impunity the 'Ndrangheta could operate with in Calabria -- they didn't need to hide, they didn't need to demonstrate, they just went about their business with the cocksuredness of those who truly have nothing to prove and nothing to fear. Seated at the table was the 'ndrina boss, who did not rise in greeting, and Gianni, yesterday's chat partner and today's translator, who did. Clint was greeted respectfully if not warmly, asked to sit and promised a stellar Calabrian meal.

"You eat hot food?" the Boss, Gaetano, asked through Gianni. Gaetano spoke Italian and Calabrian, the latter of which was completely incomprehensible to Clint, as opposed to Italian, which was only mostly so. "Calabrian food is the spiciest in all of Italy. And the best."

Clint assured them he did, not pointing out that they already knew that because he'd been observed having lunch.

The table was quickly loaded down with antipasta that could have fed an army, not the usual routine in Italy but something he associated more with Russian-style feasts, and their wine glasses were filled with what was assuredly not the house wine.

"A few times a month, Kronas uses a local trucking service to move items up to Lamezia Terme," Gianni began once they'd grazed their way through half a dozen plates of prepared vegetables and fishes. They sat back as the plates were cleared away and clean ones brought out for the pasta course. "Most of what they unload here goes to the trains or to the big rigs, but these trucks are small, regular road trucks. They go to the private side of the airport and meet a plane with a Latverian registration. Three times in the last two months, these trucks have been instructed to leave Kronas's port warehouse after regular working hours so that they'll get to the airport at night -- before the airport closes, but after all of the loaders are supposed to be gone. 

"Kronas has paid very well to make sure that our drivers are not inconvenienced for the late trip and they pay a fine at Lamezia because they don't use the union labor and load the plane themselves," Gianni went on, then paused to listen to his boss speak. "The drivers don't get out of the trucks and don't see anything -- they're not supposed to see anything."

"But one did," Clint finished. The pasta came out, delicate and very clearly handmade. Somewhere in London, Natasha was experiencing a pang of jealousy and did not understand why.

Gianni nodded. "He saw a HYDRA symbol," he said. "We don't know if this was one box or if all of the late shipments have been HYDRA property. We would like to find out so that we may deal with Kronas accordingly. They are a very fine company and we are grateful for their business, but they aware of what we will and will not be a party to." 

Clint nodded. "Let me know what I can do for you in this matter."

What Clint could do was revealed during the meat course. He should go up to Catanzano and wait for a phone call because Kronas had already secured the services of the trucking company for an evening drive from the port to the airport. The exact timing depended on the arrival of the _Voshod Solntsa_ , which was supposed to be docking in three days but there had been storms in the Med and so it could be up to a week. 

There was also the matter of an entirely voluntary contribution toward the saint's day festival that would be happening soon, which Clint had come prepared to make however the polite fiction was presented to him. He was well aware that he still had the table manners and social skills of an unsupervised circus kid who'd joined the part of the Army that did not swan around in dress uniforms, but he had enough life experience to know better than to show any money at the table. He handed the thick wad of small-ish bill euros to the fellow who gave him back his gun and knives on his way out after coffee and pastries. 

He waited until he was back in his room before calling Coulson, who was back in New York fighting off various attempts to horn in on the operation now that it had the possibility of being a HYDRA raid. But while Coulson might have been out of the game for a while, he wasn't rusty and the op remained Clint's alone up until the trucks left the port, at which point a direct action team would fly in from NAS Sigonella. This was fine with Clint, since he wasn't about to let a bunch of HYDRA boxes head off to Latveria and it would be easier if he didn't have to do that by himself. 

The phone call came five days later, by which point Clint had scouted the airport, the private air terminals and the hangar where the drivers had been told to park. During the course of which he'd taken pictures of a lot of tail numbers and faces and sent them off to SHIELD because Lukin was hardly the only one using the Gioia Tauro-Catanzano highway as a Silk Road for illegal activity and it was sometimes good to bank away favors that he would need to call in in the future.

He was comfortable handling the first part of the Kronas operation by himself -- there were limited entrances and exits beyond the main hangar doors and there was an extensive catwalk that was in use during the day but would be perfect at night to see everything and, arguably as important, aim at anything without being seen. 

He moved into position as the last of the workers left the hangar, a stolen ID clipped to his belthook and a hat jammed down low on his head. There was nothing to do but wait for the next few hours, wait and eat and take pictures and play with his arrows, which sounded dirtier to Coulson than it should have when he called in to check on Clint.

The lights were off save for the security lamps, so the place had a gloom to it. It wasn't dark enough that night optics would do any good, but it was dim enough that good natural night vision was essential and one bright light would effectively blind him for a few minutes.

The hangar doors started to open at 1918 local time and the plane, a Gulfstream G280, taxied in neatly twenty minutes later. The plane stayed buttoned up for about ten minutes, but then the door opened and the ladder dropped and four men, including one in a modified pilot's uniform, came down and headed to the hangar doors to smoke. Smoking -- lighting anything on fire -- was strictly prohibited in the area because of the risk of explosion from the jet fuel, but that hadn't stopped the Italians during the day and it wasn't stopping the Russians -- for that's who these guys were -- now. They chatted away about sports and women, wondering whether the rumor was true that the directors of Real Doomstadt FC were going to buy Messi's contract (Clint was with the guy with the Urals accent in saying that was ridiculous) and the recent results of the Miss Russia pageant, which had been won by a girl with "blowjob lips." 

Clint took pictures of the men -- most of which were with the men in profile, backlit by the external floodlights -- and the plane, sending the one with the tail number to Coulson first. He thought that there were at least two men left in the plane, the other pilot and then either a crew member or, more likely, the boss of the smoking men. From context, they were a Doomstadt-based crew, although Clint would bet that none of them had been in Latveria for too long; they still talked like Russian expats and not like Latverian immigrants and none of them had the weird flattening of vowels that marked a Latverian accent in any language.

"The plane's registered to a shell company in Doomstadt," Coulson reported back a few minutes later. "I'm sure if we dig hard enough, we'll find out it belongs to either Lukin or Doom, but I'm not sure it's worth the effort. Can you tag it?" 

Clint eyed the landing gear, which would be the best place to stick something without worrying too much about it coming off in flight. "I can do an external tracker," he confirmed. "Don't know how much of a chance I'll get for an internal one once things get silly."

His plan was to disable the plane and then hold as many of the passengers and crew as he could without killing them (he'd rather kill them than have them escape) until the Direct Action team arrived from Sigonella. 

"About that," Coulson sighed. "Sicily's getting pummeled by a squall and the helo couldn't take off until twenty minutes ago. You may have to hold the fort for a little longer than planned."

Clint rolled his eyes. "Are flight ops actually shut down or did Magnusson wimp out because of the turbulence?" 

He'd known Charles Magnusson, the DA team leader, since they were both in the Army, Clint a grizzled master sergeant from the shadowy parts of Fort Bragg and Magnusson a wet-behind-the-ears lieutenant who'd thought his farts smelled like roses because he'd just made it through the Q course before he got promoted to captain. Magnusson had barely gotten past the point where he demanded respectful salutes from senior non-coms who'd been in uniform when he'd been in diapers and now he got to wear a Special Forces tab along with the shiny new railroad tracks, so he'd been all kinds of insufferable. One of Clint's best buddies had been the team sergeant for Magnusson's team and had despaired of ever beating down that ego enough so that he could build up the good officer who lurked within under heavy camouflage. But then Magnusson had gone on his first night helo ride and gotten badly airsick and his nickname had been instantaneous and permanent: Captain Upchuck. Clint had made sure everyone at SHIELD had known about it when he'd found out that Magnusson had moved over. 

"Unclear," Coulson replied. Magnusson wasn't as big a dickwad as he'd been back then, but he was still enough of a jackass that there might have been applause when Steve, of all people, had snarked back at him. Coulson was certainly no fan, although Clint knew there had to have been a specific incident there because Coulson required more than an unpleasant personality to cross someone off. "But the trucks are ten minutes out and the helo is thirty, so find a way to make the math work."

The way the math worked was that Clint had to let the trucks drive off first -- he had no beef with the drivers, plus he'd more or less promised Gaetano and Gianni that he'd keep them out of it -- so that he only had to worry about the plane and its occupants. Which was not going to be easy, but would be easier without the Italians in the way. They were all hard men, ex-military and all wearing shoulder holsters with extra clips for the guns strapped into them, and while he could guess that there were probably two men left in the plane, it could be a lot more.

Fifteen minutes later, one of the men by the hangar door called back toward the plane that the trucks were coming. Clint watched as they stamped out their cigarettes, listening for the sounds of the motors. The guy in the pilot's uniform went back inside the plane and, a moment later, two more black-clad men came out. One was clearly the boss-type -- he was dressed the same way the others were, right down to the watch cap and tactical gear, but he carried an extra gun at his hip and was ordering everyone else around in slangy Moscow Russian; the others were all provincials.

The drivers knew the routine, apparently, and drove the trucks in slowly. The foreman shouted the occasional order to them in Italian, not Calabrian Italian, which was as far as Clint could go with that, and soon the three trucks were stopped with their rears pointing toward the plane and their ignitions off. The four Russian underlings started prepping to move the truck's contents, one opening up the plane's cargo hold and another starting up a forklift to which he'd somehow acquired a key and two going to the rear of the truck closest to the hangar doors, where the foreman joined them after first running back into the plane for something, possibly to talk to the pilots. Clint took pictures throughout, especially when the rear door of the first truck was rolled up and the forklift came away with boxed that were absolutely HYDRA origin. There were even two with AIM's logo stenciled on the side.

After each truck was emptied out, the boxes stacked next to the plane, the foreman rolled down the door, locked it, and slapped the side of the truck on the driver's side with a loud exhortation to go. As the third one was getting emptied out, Clint put away his camera and pulled out his bow, nocking an arrow but not pulling it taut. The arrow was loaded with knockout gas, a potent mix that worked beautifully in tight quarters but lost effectiveness quickly as it dispersed and it tended to go out instead of up, so Clint, twelve meters away and ten up, was at no risk of exposure but the five down below would be out cold at least until Magnusson and his team showed.

At least that had been the plan. What actually happened was that as soon as the foreman jumped down off the back of the locked third truck and gave it the same love tap he'd given the other two, Clint drew the string tight. But he never got the shot off because in one smooth motion, the foreman spun and drew his weapon and fired at Clint. Not fired near, but fired _at_ , despite him being completely covered by darkness and distance and the professional stillness that had been decades in the making. He _knew_ he hadn't been seen, and yet the bullet that had been aimed directly at his head said otherwise. 

He rolled away, shoving the knockout gas arrow back into his quiver as he regained his feet and ran in a crouch for cover. He felt a bullet graze his thigh, not enough to incapacitate but enough to hurt like a motherfucker and bleed a lot. He pulled out his EMP arrow and shot it at the plane's nose as he ran; if he was going to be the fox in the hunt until Magnusson showed, at least the plane wouldn't be going anywhere. He heard the miserable whine of the cargo door failing as he half-stumbled into the left turn on the catwalk's t-junction.

"Things just got messy," Clint warned Coulson. "Tell the cavalry to hurry the fuck up."

He pulled out a field dressing and bound his thigh tightly, listening for the sounds of footsteps on the metal catwalk stairs. The catwalk was a network, two long lanes running the length of the hangar on the sides and two shorter lanes crossing the width, an H with an extra bar. There were steep metal stairs -- ladders, really -- at the back of the two long lanes and it would take the guys below a couple of minutes to get to them and start climbing, during which they'd have to holster their weapons or at least render them useless because it took two hands to hold on to the banisters. He was sitting against the wall on the right long lane if you were looking at it from the hangar doors, just south of the junction with the forward cross-lane. He would be able to see the guy coming up the ladder on his side before the guy would be able to do anything and he was hidden well enough should someone be coming the other way. He was not protected from below, however, although nobody was shooting at him from below, either. This was not going to be a wild west gunfight, apparently, which made sense considering that Lukin's men didn't want to attract attention from either the airport security they'd paid off or the police they probably hadn't.

He heard the footstep on the ladder closer to him, muted instead of clanging up like an amateur, and he waited, pulling out his Glock rather than waste an arrow. He half-crawled back to the T-junction, wincing in pain but glad the dressing was holding, so that he could have a little cover and then he waited. One Mississippi, two Mississippi, three Mississ-- and then he fired, a face shot that there'd been no protection against. He heard the thud as the guy landed on the ground, and then pushed himself up into a standing crouch and secured his equipment so that he could run without things banging against either his back or his damaged thigh.

He made his way back across the front cross path, pausing to see what was going on below. There were three men visible, the foreman and two of the underlings and they were trying to get everything out of the cargo hold of the dead plane, which meant that there was one more unaccounted for. Clint kept moving because otherwise he was a stationary target. He made it to the left side of the hangar and waited before turning the corner until he was sure it was clear.

It wasn't and Clint barely got out of the way of the shots that followed. This guy was lighter on his feet but heavier on the trigger because he emptied out his clip even without having a shot. It was not unnoticed from below. How could it be with the deafening report in the metal structure.

"What are you doing you fucking moron?" the foreman called up. "You might as well be sending up New Year's fireworks."

The fucking moron in question changed clips and proceeded to empty the new one in Clint's general direction as he skedaddled around the corner on to the right side where he'd shot the first guy. But then Clint heard a single shot and a thump and he realized that the foreman had taken out his own guy. Probably for the best considering the guy's noise discipline and general inability to follow orders, but still pretty hardcore. Clint stole a glance down below and was rewarded with a bullet graze to the left shoulder, again enough to hurt and bleed but not to incapacitate.

He was being fucked with. And he was pretty sure he knew who was doing the fucking.

"You might as well recall the Widow," Clint muttered into his radio mic as he looked at his shoulder, which was a mess of unknown severity but very known pain. "I've found the Winter Soldier."

He'd seen the photos, of Yasha Yachmenev and of James Barnes, but he hadn't pinged to it right away. Even now, it was hard to see it. It was hard to see at all because of the darkness, but the shape of the face was changed enough by the watch cap and the beard that even if he'd gotten a full look in decent lighting, Clint wasn't sure he'd recognize it.

"Working for Lukin or Doom?" Coulson mused. "ETA is five for the DA team."

Clint chuffed a bitter laugh as he ran as soft-footedly as he could to the rear cross-walk so that he could get over to the other side without having to either jump over the fallen baddie or expose himself to the Winter Soldier. Whom Clint was pretty sure would have killed him by now if that's what he'd wanted to do, but getting another non-fatal gunshot wound was not appealing either and, right now, all he wanted to do was get down to the ground.

He was leery of taking either ladder down and leaving himself as vulnerable as his own opponent had been, so he crossed over to the left side again and instead of going toward the rear of the hangar toward the ladder went toward the front, so that he could keep an eye on what the Winter Soldier and his two remaining companions. Who were now moving the forklift over to a pile of the unloaded crates. Clint shot the forklift operator in the back of the head, which sent the forklift driving into the plane with a grinding noise as if it could move the plane by pushing the tail.

The Winter Soldier looked up and _smiled_ at Clint, but he aimed his pistol at his surviving underling instead of at Clint and shot him before he could so much as beg for his life. And then he saluted Clint, pulled the pin on a grenade, lobbed it into the now-empty cargo hold, shouted "fire in the hole!" in Brooklyn-accented English, and disappeared.

"Mother _fucker_ ," Clint shouted and started to run like hell for the rear stairs. The plane had been refueled before it had come into the hangar; a full tank was going to go up like a volcano and then there were the gas trucks outside and the tanks close enough to get caught in a chain reaction. His only chance to survive at all was to hope that the Winter Soldier had factored in his own escape when he'd set the timer on the grenade. Clint counted the Mississippis as he made it down the ladder -- sliding down the handrails -- and ran for the door at the back of the hangar that led to the manager's office, which had its own exit to the outside. The inside door was locked, of course. He braced on his good leg and kicked as hard as he could.

The force of the kick against the metal door sent waves of pain from his wound and he stumbled into the manager's office, fighting the urge to grab on to the nearest available surface to steady himself because he didn't want to leave fingerprints. But then he realized that (a) he was _bleeding all over the place_ and (b) the entire place was about to be blown to smithereens and him along with it because he was already up to fifteen Mississippis and he hadn't started counting right away, so he used whatever he needed to get himself to the door.

He was still fighting with the locks when the grenade went off and he could hear the _foomp_ before the blast wave came at him with more force and heat than he could protect himself against. He was blown through the wall and out into the open air, the rubble falling all around him as he fought the pain to stay conscious. He was trying to move, to get away from the heat of the fire engulfing the hangar, but he wasn't quite in control of his movements, he couldn't _see_ , he was covered in debris, and this was _not_ how he wanted it to end.

He could hear sirens in the distance and then there was another explosion that sounded miles away and then he realized his hearing was shot, too, because he could feel the heat and force of the new blast and it was definitely not miles away. But then there were hands pulling at him and he fought them because he didn't know who they were until finally someone shouted loud enough into his ear that they were SHIELD and gave him the operational code words and he went limp long enough to be carried to safety.

He didn't remember much about the helo ride back to Sigonella except that they wouldn't let him sleep, which pissed him off and he said nasty things about Captain Upchuck in retaliation. Or at least he thought he did, it was all very hazy.

His next mostly clear thought was approximately three days later, by which point he'd already been medevaced to Landstuhl. He'd woken up confused as hell, bound and tangled up, and completely blind, which had sent him into a panic that only a sharp admonition from Natasha had quelled. She told him where he was and why he couldn't see -- flash burns, probably no long-term effects but he had to be patient -- and what else was wrong with him. Which in turn was a nasty combination of burns and shrapnel and wounds from being blown through a wall that then fell on him and the two bullet wounds he'd almost forgotten about.

"You should be happy you can't see right now," she told him. "You look terrible."

Steve was there, too, but he was touring the hospital in uniform, signing autographs and sitting with the wounded and generally being a USO chorus girl for a population that could use all of the day-brightening they could get. He came back while Clint was eating lunch, which consisted of him pilling little bits of bread and relying on the muscle memory of stiff and bandaged hands to get them near his mouth, drinking milk through a straw, and eating fruit salad with his fingers.

"So you had your share of fun and excitement," Steve said as Clint could hear him sit down in the chair Natasha had vacated. She'd gone into town for a real lunch, snorting at Clint's request for her to bring him back a currywurst.

"Nah, I think this was someone else's share," Clint replied, patting around on the tray for his napkin. He'd been trained to operate without sight, to do deadly things in the dark, but remembering where everything on the tray was so that he wouldn't have to grope was a little bit beyond his drug-addled mind right now. "My share ends with a beer and a long vacation." 

Steve put the napkin in his hand. "Both of which are still possible now," he pointed out. "You aren't working for a while, although I'm pretty sure alcohol is not a good idea with everything they've got you on."

Clint scoffed; it wouldn't be the first or third time he'd combined booze and morphine. 

"Did you hear?" he asked instead, since he didn't want to face Steve's disapproving look even if he couldn't see it. 

It was a change of subject and a completely unhelpful question as far as specifics because they hadn't seen each other in weeks and there was a lot to tell, but Steve knew exactly what he was asking because he sighed. "Yeah. I don't know if it's better or worse."

Steve wouldn't know the details yet; Clint hadn't been debriefed and there was only so much Coulson would have picked up via the radio. Steve didn't know that The Winter Soldier had taken out two of his own men, four (or more) if you counted who was in the plane when it exploded. He didn't know that the answer was 'worse' no matter what because Steve didn't want to believe what there was to believe about what had become of Bucky Barnes. Clint remembered the first time he'd been confronted with firsthand evidence of his brother's crimes; he hadn't wanted to believe it, either. There had to be extenuating circumstances, there had to be a _reason_ why Barney would do what he'd done, something that made sense. But there hadn't been and there never would be and a part of Clint would never understand that because he'd known Barney _before_. But there was no mystery to the Winter Soldier, they knew what had been done to him and what he was now. Except Steve, who could only ever see the brother he'd known before. 

He hadn't realized he'd dozed off again, but he must have because the tray with his lunch was gone, the napkin in his hand was gone, and Steve was gone, too, replaced by Coulson, who'd come to take him back to New York. 


	4. Chapter 4

"... why it has to be either/or! You are going to end up missing the important parts of the story if you are so determined to fit everything in your neat little boxes," Natasha spat out. If Fury had been in the room instead of appearing like the Wizard of Oz via video teleconference, Clint half-suspected she'd have jumped across the table at him. As it was, though, she settled for slapping her hand down on the table to the beat of her words, which caused enough of a breeze to ruffle Steve's notepad, since Captain Luddite still took notes with pen and paper. Clint supposed he would, too, if he took notes, but he didn't, hadn't since his Army days, at least the part where he'd still get the stink-eye from briefing officers. It had pissed off Coulson at first, but once Clint had established that his memory was excellent and his reflexes were more likely to fade first, it had never come up again.

He had been back in New York for three weeks, out of SHIELD's hospital facility for one, and off of the DL as of this morning. He was still on restricted duties that were, Coulson assured him, _very_ restricted (and might include both Steve and Natasha as enforcement agents), but not so restricted that he couldn't sit in a VTC and do the debrief that most of SHIELD had been waiting for since he'd gotten his ass blown up in Catanzano. His eyesight was fine, for values of fine that included light sensitivity and occasional blurriness that probably reduced his vision to 20/20 ("Is this what everyone else sees? All the time?") and would take another couple of weeks to clear up. His burns were mostly healed, except for the places where he'd gotten nailed by superheated shrapnel, although the new skin itched like a motherfucker and wasn't the same shade as the rest of him (which had been pretty tan after spending the better part of the last several months where he'd been) and the hairless look wasn't good on him. But he could shave his face, so he'd stopped looking like an extra from _Deliverance_ , at least. And he'd been cleared for light PT and had regained range privileges (his aimed sucked so badly right now, still above average but terrible for him), so there were worse ways to spend a convalescence.

Say, being stuck in a VTC. Because having medical clearance to wear sunglasses indoors did not mean that nobody could tell when you were napping.

Clint's part of today's drama had been brief because, unlike certain parties present on the call, he did not like to run his mouth just to hear the sound of his own voice. He'd given his report, answered all of the follow-up questions, and then sat back and shut up and let the people who were paid to think about events from a distance twist everything he'd said into uselessness. And then let Natasha verbally assault them for being idiots out loud.

"There is no inherent contradiction in Yasha Yachmenev being in service to Aleksander Lukin and Sergei Filiakov at the same time," Natasha went on, cutting off one of the analysts from the Russia Desk. "His primary allegiance will be to Lukin. His _only_ allegiance will be to Lukin. If Filiakov even realizes that he's a cut-out and he is not Yachmenev's first loyalty, then he is smart enough to not ask who or why."

For obvious reasons, Natasha had had a lot to do with the Russia desk over the years and her relationship with the personnel there tended to wax and wane, not always in direct correspondence to how much they agreed with her. But one point where she did not brook opposition was anything to do with the Red Room; she had been brought in to be the resident expert, she'd tell anyone, and her expertise came from blood and tears and gunpowder and not from sitting through the Soviet Studies program at the Kennedy School. Which meant that on top of all of her personal entanglements with the Winter Soldier case file, she was stubbornly refusing to accept that there might be alternate analyses of the data or valid conclusions that she hadn't drawn. Clint felt for her, even though there were times when maybe the Russia Desk sounded like they might have possibly stumbled upon a reasonable idea. 

This was at least part of one: he had been among those requiring a little more than Natasha's initial explanation for how Yasha could be any part of the _vor_ culture and still be able to pop off to Italy and run errands for Lukin. (Or break into SHIELD secure facilities -- and they haven't even gotten around to talking about _that_ yet.) She'd been a little too 'Trust me, I'm Red Room,' which had never been one of her finer traits and had been something Clint (and Coulson) had tried to work on, to mixed results. 

"What I don't undestand is why nobody's noticed that there's a guy who looks and moves like him running around," Harrington from the Direct Action Service said. "There are only so many Red Room operatives at large and working outside known channels. If you can all identify each other by smell or whatever it is you do, shouldn't it be obvious who and what he is?"

Clint had more or less had the same question until he'd spent the better part of an hour watching The Winter Soldier without realizing it, but he wasn't so much of an idiot to phrase his doubts like that. Natasha looked like she wanted to ask Harrington why he _was_ such an idiot and was he hoping to provoke her to violence. 

"Because it's easier for everyone to sleep at night if they believe the Winter Soldier died with Karpov," is what she actually said. "As terrifying as he is to the West, he's that much more of a nightmare fuel in Moscow. In the West, he was a shoemaker's elf, the magic unseen force with a list of deeds that was improbable and implausible and co-written by the fears and suspicions of the Cold War. In Moscow, he was a reality and the breadth and scope of his activities were known. It's much scarier when you know for certain that the monster in the closet is real. You cannot understand how much it would terrify the Kremlin to find out he was running around, let alone that he is under the control of someone who is not under _their_ control."

Clint looked sidelong over at Steve, who was taking this talk of the Winter Soldier as well as he had the earlier discussions. When Clint had described how the Winter Soldier had killed most of his own team without regard, Steve had shook his head in disbelief, as if this could prove that this was somehow not Bucky or that there'd been more to the story. Now, Steve just looked sick, like they were all talking smack about his best friend and he couldn't defend him. Which, in a way, they were.

"Because Lukin doesn't _want_ everyone to know he's running the Winter Soldier," Natasha replied, exasperated, to yet another iteration of the same question. "He doesn't want Moscow knowing that the Winter Soldier is active because it's a short leap from one to the other if you know the players. Vasily Karpov had two proteges that survived him. Putin doesn't have the Winter Soldier, so either Lukin does or nobody does because he was destroyed. Everyone is happiest if they can believe the Winter Soldier was destroyed."

Steve put his pencil down and flexed his fingers before curling his hands into balls. Clint, sitting next to him, pretended not to notice. 

"What happens someone does ID the Winter Soldier?" Fury asked, cutting off a follow-up question from Zubov, the Russia Desk lead. "What happens when they realize Lukin's got him?"

Natasha smiled wryly and darkly, the way she only did when thinking about the byzantine bullshit of her former bosses. "Then Lukin either must prepare to become the new Tsar and topple Putin or he should start planning his own funeral. Putin _can't_ let him live, not when he's got the most unstoppable weapon on the battlefield. Lukin might not want to join the war, but he'll have to defend himself. Doom won't be able to protect him and his family forever."

Hill stood up. "Okay, this officially concludes the Catanzano after-action report and discussion. If you are not cleared for both Operation Houdini and Operation Patriot, I will ask you to leave the room or the VTC, depending. Thank you for your participation and there will be a summary report available soon."

Houdini, named after Coulson, was the search for HYDRA weapons in Latveria. Patriot was the really-fucking-poorly-chosen (by someone who'd probably seen the look on Steve's face and chosen to remain anonymous) umbrella name for whatever the hell they were going to do about the fact that the Winter Soldier was James Barnes. 

There was a shuffling of seats and the occasional beeping from the video screen from the people who couldn't figure out how to cleanly leave the VTC and soon it was down to the three Avengers, Tapper, Coulson, Hill, and Zubov in the room and Fury on the screen. 

"All right," Hill sighed, sitting down heavily. "Let's start the hard stuff. We have someone on Lukin's payroll moving HYDRA gear through Italy and breaking into SHIELD looking for the Tesseract. Who's calling the shots here and what's the end game?"

Steve sat up sharply and Clint exchanged a look with a Natasha because, yeah, this was about to blow up all over their faces. Steve expected Hill and Fury to lie to him, but not them. This was all on him, Clint was prepared to confess. It had been his decision to not tell Steve when Natasha had come to him and he didn't regret that, figuring that there'd be time enough when they had some hard intel because this was not the kind of rumor-mongering he wanted to get involved with. Since Minyar, when they had found out that the Winter Soldier was _real_ , there had been all kinds of rumors and sightings and whatnot -- he was the spy Elvis, turning up everywhere. And Steve reacted to every single rumor, so no, Clint was not going to apologize for not passing on one more. (And it was a rumor, no matter what Natasha insisted.) If there'd been proof -- DNA from the blood on the floor in Wyoming, fingerprints in Selvig's lab or on one of the dropped weapons, a piece of the video feed they could have isolated and run against facial recognition -- then Clint would have rang Steve's doorbell in the middle of the night if he'd had to. But there hadn't ever been any proof, nothing beyond Natasha's gut feeling and Clint hadn't even realized that that had been promoted from 'possibly the Winter Soldier' to 'most likely the Winter Soldier,' 

"Where was I when it was determined that the Winter Soldier was in Wyoming?" Steve asked with a mildness of tone that fooled no one. "Just out of curiosity, of course. Because clearly this is all above my pay grade and perhaps I should have left with the others so that the adults could talk alone."

He'd been looking at Hill when he spoke, but it was Fury who answered.

"Stow the righteous indignation, Cap," Fury commanded. "We'd been through this before."

"We have," Steve agreed easily. "And you promised me that I would be part of the mission to bring Bucky in. I believe you offered this in exchange for me not going off on my own, although you phrased it differently. I have learned to take your promises with grains of salt, Director, but this is rubbing my nose in how loosely you plan on sticking to that agreement. So, no. I think indignation, righteous or not, is an appropriate reaction."

The Wizard of Oz image of Fury frowned. "We agreed that in as much as anyone can speak for James Barnes, that person is you and you would have full access to all resources being used to bring him in from the cold. But we _also_ agreed that there are missions and files that have to do with the Winter Soldier that are beyond your need to know. And like it or not, _I_ am the arbiter of where that distinction lies."

That Fury was apparently plopping that line of demarcation exactly in the middle of a Tesseract-related break-in to a SHIELD facility, when Steve had been part of the follow-up to so many others, seemed to be proving Steve's point, Clint thought. Judging by Steve's face, he seemed to think so, too.

"We found out from the surviving attacker," Natasha spoke up, breaking the tension by shifting everyone's attention to herself. "He didn't say who, just that the attack had been led by a Red Room operative. I worked it out from there, although I did not have the necessary hard evidence to prove it beyond my own suspicions. Technically, I still don't. But everything Yasha did in Italy matches up with what the maybe-Yasha did in Wyoming."

"Including taking out his own man," Steve said flatly. His posture next to Clint was still ramrod-straight, braced for impact, but he didn't sound like he was spoiling for a fight anymore. "Is this a routine hazard of working with him?" 

Natasha gave him a tiny shrug. "He's historically worked alone."

Which was either an answer or an excuse, depending on how you wanted to take it. Clint wasn't sure how he took it; Steve seemed similarly unsure.

"What I don't think any of us understand is why Yachmenev is allowing himself to be run by anyone," Tapper spoke up when the silence stretched for a beat too long. "He's the best agent the Soviet Union ever produced -- no offense intended, Widow -- and he has options. Why is he submitting to one, let alone two masters?"

"For the same reason I'm here," Natasha replied and Clint hadn't missed that she hadn't so much as sniffed at being compared unfavorably to the Winter Soldier. Which for someone of her ego -- justified, of course -- was not nothing. "It's what we know. The Red Room taught us to work independently, to take initiative when necessary, and get the job done better than anyone else. But they did not train us to walk without a leash. We were _conditioned_ to obedience and punished with unimaginable savagery for each instance of defiance. I eventually broke that conditioning, but Yasha... he did it once and they made sure he never did it again."

And here she paused and for a heartbeat, Clint could see the pain in her eyes and knew that she wasn't talking about his initial refusal to submit to the Red Room protocols, a refusal that had gotten him sent to the infamous Monster Factory at Minyar to be broken down until he could be rebuilt along more useful lines. She was talking about something else and Clint would bet anything that that something else was her and that she'd never speak of it and he'd never ask her to. And then she blinked again and she was just regular Natasha again, speaking with calm detachment about her past.

"The Red Room turned us into the finest tools a man of power could want to employ," she went on. "But tools, no matter how finely made, need a workman to direct their actions. We require tactical autonomy, prefer strategic autonomy, but work best when someone else holds the overall reins."

Zubov, the Russia Desk lead, typed notes and nodded, muttering to himself as he did so. Clint was quite sure that none of this was completely new to Zubov, but he was also quite sure that Zubov hadn't heard Natasha speak as openly and unconfrontationally about her Red Room knowledge maybe ever.

"Going back to Lukin, then," Hill prompted. "He's using the Winter Soldier, which we have established is a high-risk, high-reward action for more reasons than personnel turnover. We know why the Winter Soldier is going along with it, but why is Lukin? Is he doing this for himself -- to prepare for some future battle against Putin, for example -- or is he doing this for Doom? And if he's doing this for Doom, what is _his_ end game and does he know or care that the Winter Soldier is being used to further it?"

Clint prayed nobody brought up the threat of the serum being in Doom's hands, too. On top of everything else, this would be too much.

"On the geopolitical front, it would be better if he were working for Doom, yes?" Zubov asked as he continued to type. "A power struggle in Russia of this magnitude would be felt everywhere."

Sadly enough, probably true. Doom, for better or for worse, had never shown any imperialist tendencies. Power corrupted, but even if Doom got his hands on the Tesseract itself somehow, there were even odds that he'd never do anything with it but secure Latveria's borders. Putin and Lukin fighting it out, however, would be a civil war within Russia and an extremely bloody proxy war without.

"If Lukin is looking back to Russia, is there any hope that he would stop there?" Hill asked. "Would he want to recreate the Soviet Empire? Take a page out of Hitler's playbook and start reuniting a Greater Russia? We've got nothing there. Absolutely nothing."

Which wasn't quite true, although what little they did have probably didn't need the hour and a half they took to talk about it. When the meeting officially broke up, Steve made a beeline for the door, ignoring both Hill's and Natasha's calling after him.

"Leave him," Clint told Natasha, hoping Hill and Tapper would listen, too. "Let him go destroy a few heavy bags. He's got a legit reason to be pissed at all of us. Telling him he doesn't or that he should get over it isn't going to help."

Natasha let herself get dragged off by Zubov, chattering rapidly in Russian about who would side with whom in a Putin-Lukin showdown, and Tapper sighed piteously as he looked at his phone vibrating once he'd turned it back on.

Coulson and Hill were talking about whatever at the far end of the table, so Clint levered himself up and toddled a little stiffly toward the elevator. Walking was fine once he got started, but he was still a bit Tin Woodsman after too long in one position. He was already out in the hallway before Coulson called after him to remind him about a meeting they had later and he called back a non-verbal assurance that he'd heard. He went to the commissary, which unlike the Helicarrier had edible options -- SHIELD had figured out it was better for security if most agents and support staff ate in-house instead of mingling with the office crowds and tourists on the streets. Which was not to say that a goodly portion of SHIELD was not queued up at the halal cart catty-corner from Rockefeller Center on Sixth on any given lunch hour, but instead that there was actual edible food to be had without braving the elements and the hordes.

One chicken caesar salad later, Clint made his way down to the gym levels, going directly to the little room that nobody other than Steve used because it was ugly and small and the yoga classes had all relocated to an unused office on the forty-eighth floor.

Steve had gone through two bags already, one explosively judging by the sand pile, and didn't even pause in his assault on the third when Clint opened the door and came in. The room had poor ventilation, which is why the yoga classes had fled, and smelled like leather and sweat and whatever it was they put in the heavy bags besides sand.

"You here to tell me to put my big boy pants on?" Steve asked as he followed a left cross with what would be a right kidney punch on a man Steve's size. "Or are you here to not-really apologize?"

Clint took a deep breath of stale air and let it out slowly. "I'll offer a totally-real apology if you'd like. Even if you don't because part of this is on me fair and square."

Steve stopped punching and held on to the bag a little. He was winded and when he spoke, he spoke to the bag. "I don't need to be protected like this. Like I was when I first woke up and everyone kept anything that might possibly distress me far, far away." He turned to Clint then. "I'm not that man anymore."

The problem was that Steve was mostly right, but also mostly wrong. He didn't understand that they protected him not because they weren't sure he could handle it, at least as far as Clint -- and Natasha -- went. They protected him because they _could_ , because there was some shit that Steve just didn't have to deal with if at all possible, and because underneath the cowl and behind the shield was a young man who had not had much adulthood before war had changed everything forever. He was arguably the greatest officer Clint had ever followed into a fight, but away from that fight he was still a decade younger than Clint was and innocent in ways that neither Clint nor Natasha had been in so very long. So to use their experiences to make his better, it was a gesture of friendship, of family maybe even, not an act of doubt. Although considering what it must look like from the outside, he could understand Steve's inability to discern the difference.

"You're not that man anymore," Clint agreed, because Steve was still waiting for something. "But just because you can survive a bullet doesn't mean you have to step in front of every one that comes your way. Doesn't mean we have to let you. I'm not going to justify Fury's completely arbitrary need-to-know bullshit, but I'm not going to promise to pass on any rumor I hear that might be true but will absolutely ruin your day, either. I don't get my jollies watching you hurt."

Steve gave him a look, searching and serious, and Clint looked right back. There was nothing to hide here, at least about that. Then Steve nodded once and Clint knew that they were fine. Steve, unlike himself, did not hold grudges. 

"Do you know what Fury and Coulson are going to do about Latveria?" Steve asked as he returned to the heavy bag, working on combinations instead of trying to pound the thing into oblivion. 

"Suppose it depends on whether they can figure out if the real threat is Doom, Lukin, or if it's something else entirely," Clint answered with a shrug. "I'm getting locked in a room with Coulson later, I may have a better idea then."

Or not, because Coulson was frequently no better than Fury about keeping his own counsel. 

"What else could it be?" Steve made a frustrated noise because the last left-right uppercut pair had started to snap a seam on the bag. He rotated around the bag so that he was facing Clint, but his attention was still on the bag. 

"I don't know," Clint demurred. "Just throwing it out there."

Steve leaned around the bag and gave him what Clint referred to as his "don't bullshit me, son" look, which was something Captain America used to great effect even though it was really  entirely _Steve_.

He relented. "We've got aliens popping up out the woodwork all over the place," he pointed out. "What's to say there's not another one? Loki certainly had his human helpers when it came to the Tesseract." 

The last part came out a little bit more bitter than he'd have liked. 

Steve, who'd maybe thought Clint had been reluctant to talk because of secrets instead of his own shame, pulled his head back behind the bag and started left-right-left combinations again. 

"No offense to Thor, I hope this is an entirely human affair."

* * *

"Don't do that, man," Clint sighed as the SUV with Jersey plates and bumper sticker that proclaimed to love dolphins and the Jets tried to cut him off. "I promised Captain America that I wouldn't use my professional skills on the road today. Do you want me to break a promise to Captain America?"

He gunned the engine just enough to close the gap between him and the Nissan in front of him and make further intrusion into the lane a real hazard to the SUV's chrome grille. He wasn't an aggressive driver in a non-professional setting, not really, except when he was. He just expected a little bit of courtesy, even on the West Side Highway, and wasn't above a little coercive enforcement.

Or maybe just a month in the city was making him a little crazy around the edges, which had possibly prompted Steve's exhortation when they'd had dinner with Natasha the night before and Clint had announced his intention to day trip up to Bear Mountain. Steve couldn't go -- he was leaving for DC -- and Natasha had no desire to go. And so Clint had slid his mountain bike into the modified trunk of the Corolla and entered the fray of New York City rush hour traffic by himself.

(It didn't matter that he was doing a reverse commute. The West Side Highway was still a parking lot and the GW was still effed up outbound because of a stalled something on the upper level; if he'd waited for the worst to clear, he'd have no time at the park and he'd still get nailed on the way home.)

He had known what he was in for by driving up on a weekday and had accepted it as a necessary evil to get to what he wanted, which was to get way the hell out of the city. His friends, bless 'em, didn't understand. Natasha was a metropolitan kind of gal, happiest in the biggest cities with the most sophisticated offerings. Steve, too, was ultimately an urban creature, willing to go along with a foray into the countryside but not without a guide and not for its own sake and not too often. But Clint was not meant for cities and being too long in one, let alone a megalopolis like New York, felt wrong in a bone-deep way. Cities were where the rubes lived. If he stayed in one too long, he got claustrophobic, he got fed up with the crowds, the noise, the casual indifference, and the lack of unmoderated nature that no, Central Park did not cure because it did not count. There was no peace in cities, no calm, and after a month of enforced captivity topped off by three days of a blistering heatwave that was hopefully not a harbinger of the summer that still technically hadn't arrived, the urge to flee had grown too strong to fight. 

Which was why he was fighting for his sanity on the West Side Highway. He'd put his Glock in his backpack, currently a little too far to reach easily, entirely so that he wouldn't be tempted to reach for it. 

Summer in the city did not have a danceable beat, no matter what the Lovin' Spoonful thought. Summer in New York was stupidly hot, even in the middle of the night -- especially in the middle of the night -- and unbelievably humid and smelled awfully and made people dumb and short-tempered in a way that it did not in other parts of the country where hot weather happened more frequently. It got hot in New York every summer, but the city wasn't built for it and the longer the heat went on, the less the infrastructure and the people were able to cope with it. The rich fled to the Hamptons or the not-trashy parts of the Jersey Shore or to their country houses upstate, but that still left ten million people to deal with it -- plus the hundreds of thousands of tourists in the city on any given day. Clint had never intended to be one of those unlucky many.

He had fought what had been originally billed as a temporary basing of SHIELD in New York -- he'd spent his first few years with the agency meeting Coulson halfway between where he'd been and wherever he was going and had been able to keep a place in western Nebraska as a home and a retreat. But after the Battle of New York, there'd been no reasonable way to keep up the arrangement and so the bunking aboard the Carrier had turned into a room at a hotel had turned into the short-term rental apartment which had turned into the longer-term rental apartment that required almost another month's rent for the parking spot and he'd given up the place outside of Scottsbluff years ago.

His career since the Avengers had come into existence had been mercifully busy enough that coming back to New York in between jobs was usually not so bad. (And it had sure as shit been better than the little cube he'd been living in at Leavenworth.) Developing an honest-to-goodness friendship with Steve had helped, of course, too, because Steve's love for New York made being there a little less miserable. But Steve hadn't been around much the last month, Natasha hardly at all, and his own physical limitations while he'd been recovering had just made everything so much worse. He was careful enough not to say to anyone that mattered that they could send him anywhere now that he'd been cleared for regular duties -- he could deal without another trip to Syria, thanks much -- but he was looking forward to a job that was far away.

In the meanwhile, there was Bear Mountain. The distance between him and it decreased rapidly once he got clear of the bridge and the Palisades Parkway peeled away from its namesake. By the time he crossed back into New York, the road was open. He knew where to park to avoid the camp buses and the identically-t-shirted posses they barfed out. He pulled his bike out and looked it over before retrieving and shouldering his camelbak backpack and heading out for a day of peace and beauty and effort that would be harder than it should be because just because he was cleared for duty did not mean that a month's idleness had been completely erased.

When he got home that night -- a roadside diner dinner let him miss the worst of the traffic -- there was an email requiring him to log in to the secure server to get the info packet on his next mission, which was a compromise between easing him back into work and throwing him into the deep end. He was going back to the Middle East, back to Iraq, but not to do something that any low-level agent in-country could do. One of the local warlords he'd worked with back during the Surge in '07 was causing trouble for the government and Clint was going back there to talk him down from starting what would be a full-blown civil war.

"You want me for my diplomacy skills?" he asked Hill skeptically when he called in the next morning.

"We want you because you don't have any diplomacy skills," Hill replied. "You are the last person anyone would send to bullshit someone. You can go, listen to his probably-legitimate gripes, and then tell him that doing what he wants to do about it will cost him most of his village and all of his clan. And he'll listen to you."

Which was more or less what he did. It took him the better part of a week and little more shouting than he'd have liked, but in the end, enough repetitions of pointing to happy little kids running around the compound chasing soccer balls and asking their fathers if this matter was worth all of their lives was successful.

On the way home, he got routed through Ireland and managed to finagle turning a six hour layover into a three day stop because Natasha was in London and had already asked for surveillance assistance on one Russian oligarch in exile.

"I've been working on the Winter Soldier's recent history," Natasha said over the radio as they waited for Oleg to get off his mistress and get going to the meeting he was already running late for. "Where he's been since he was guarding Karpov's shriveling husk."

Natasha went back and forth in what she called the Winter Soldier. Sometimes it was just that, sometimes it was Yasha, once in a blue moon when she wasn't being careful, it was James. Clint hadn't picked up on any particular pattern for it, at least outside of whatever was swimming in her head, but he let it lie in exchange for her never, ever asking if he was okay with chasing down another American soldier who'd had his mind fucked with so that he was okay with killing his friends and allies. (He was, he thought, because his Blue Period nightmares hadn't come any more frequently. At least not yet.) Natasha still pretended that her relationship with the Winter Soldier had been limited to the physical and fleeting, but once she'd admitted that James had been real for her when everything else in her life had been a lie. Which Clint supposed might matter more than something like love or lust for a couple of Red Room operatives. 

"And?" he prompted. He was across the street and down the block from where the mistress was kept in a style that was hopefully worth it to her to maintain because Oleg was not exactly easy on the eyes. He was doing a completely unnecessary repair on a motorcycle, using the bike to block him from the view of Oleg's two bodyguards, who were sitting in a Mercedes in front of the row house looking bored and smoking.

"And it's pretty quiet," she answered from her spot around the corner in a tiny Renault. They were two vehicles short of a proper moving surveillance, but they knew where Oleg was going most of the time -- his house and his mistress's apartment and his car had been bugged by GCHQ, so this was more just to make sure he didn't take any sudden detours. (The Brits knew that SHIELD was camping on their tap lines, but not who precisely -- Natasha had a very poor relationship with MI-5's counterterrism chief.) "Suspiciously quiet. He must have been in stasis when Karpov finally kicked off and either Lukin didn't activate him right away or he hid him exceptionally well. I would bet on the former because once Yasha turns up, he's really not that hard to trace."

Which was bullshit because it's not like SHIELD hadn't been looking, but Clint let it go, too. Nat's ego was big enough. "When does he pop up?"

The bodyguards were starting to move purposely inside the Mercedes, so Clint took this as a sign that they would be underway soon and he started to put the bike back together.

"About a year before he shot me in Cleveland," Natasha replied. "I think Lukin's plan all along was to get him inside Filiakov's house -- Yasha took care of a few people that made Filiakov the man to be reckoned with in St. Petersburg and, in return, Filiakov vouched for him among the vor."

The guards got out of the Mercedes and Clint hunkered down, ostensibly looking for a dropped nut.

"Did Filiakov know who he really owed the favor to?" he asked, reaching around and then dropping the nut again, although there was nobody close enough to hear him curse about his butterfingers.

"My guess is no," Natasha answered. "Lukin was well-established in Latveria and everyone knew where Doom stood on the HYDRA matter. Filiakov wouldn't have lent Yasha to HYDRA without asking if he'd known he had someone to ask. And he wouldn't have asked Lukin about giving his best man to HYDRA. So, no, I don't think he knew."

The Mercedes started up with a polite diesely burp.

"Subject is about to move," he warned. "Is there a chance Lukin knew what Filiakov would do and put the Winter Soldier there to indirectly infiltrate HYDRA?"

A jolly and well-laid Oleg exited the row house and greeted his guards before getting into the Mercedes. As it passed by Clint, he could smell the insane amount of cologne that wafted out of the open windows. He put away his tools, put on the helmet carefully to avoid dislodging the earbud, and started up the motorcycle with an even more polite rumble because Japanese bikes were like that. (For the record, he though the guys who made Harleys sound as loud as they could were jackasses, but there was still something very satisfying about the way any Harley started up. None of this delicate apologetic pooting, a properly ripped fart of ignition was the way to go.)

By the time he got to the corner and made the turn, Natasha was ahead of Oleg at the next light.

"Lukin is certainly capable of it," Natasha said. "He's a master manipulator and reads people extremely well. He could have done it for his own reasons or he could have done it for Doom's, although I can't imagine why there would be any of the latter."

They executed a perfect passive two-vehicle surveillance, Clint switching to lead vehicle the closer they got to the City. He was wearing a messenger service bag and between that and the jeans and the brightly colored bike, he was impossible to pick out as a mobile assassin. (Shooting someone from a moving bike was not has favorite way to work, especially in stop and go traffic, but that wasn't the goal here. Oleg's crimes were mostly against good taste, marriage vows, British banking laws, and that flexible one about getting too rich for Putin's cronies to appreciate.)

The meeting was in a restaurant, one someone like Natasha could slip into naturally and he'd stand out like a neon turd, so he stashed the bike and made his way to where Natasha had parked. She was already dressed for it and was tucking her hair into a fashionable blonde bob wig when he got there. She slipped on a pair of ridiculous heels and exited the car carrying a glittery little purse that he knew managed to contain a gun, a knife, a garrotte, a chloroform capsule, and a lot of makeup.

Natasha got herself seated at the bar and most of what her mic picked up was her fending off suitors and chatting up the bartender, then she moved to a table and the background music faded and her utterances stuck to who Oleg was meeting and who seemed to be getting upset or happy. Natasha's role was of a lady being stood up by her gentleman, so she ordered a cocktail in blissful ignorance of her soon to be broken heart and put on a brave face as her hope faded into realization and then humiliation. She asked for the bill tearfully and was comped at least one drink, tipped generously, and fled in disgrace a few minutes after Oleg wished his companions a good dinner and left. Clint picked up the tail, which was easy because it was straight home to his young wife.

Oleg wasn't scheduled to leave again -- the guards had parked the Mercedes and gone into the mansion -- and so once the door closed, Clint circled around and went back to the restaurant to pick up Natasha.

"I made reservations for us at NOPI," she announced as she got in.

"Why would Lukin want to have a mole inside HYDRA?" Clint asked as they sat in a quiet corner of the restaurant. Natasha had lost the wig, changed her shoes, and put a sweater on over the dress and somehow made herself look completely different, so they weren't quite as mismatched a pair as they'd been earlier. "Why would he think that a guy like Filiakov, let alone a guy who _worked_ for Filiakov, get anywhere near HYDRA's important parts to make the effort worthwhile?"

There were zucchini and cheese fritters with cardamom yogurt. Clint was tempted to tell Natasha to get her own.

"Because he knew that Schmidt was running HYDRA and would know the Winter Soldier when he saw him," Natasha replied, delicately popping an olive into her mouth. "There was no possible way that Schmidt would pass up bait like that."

Schmidt had spoken at length about the Winter Soldier during his interrogations -- willingly, since he knew that every detail would be read by Steve and could still do so much damage. Schmidt had admitted that he'd realized who the Winter Soldier was in the early 1970s, when they'd crossed paths by accident in Saigon. He'd been very impressed at both the conditioning -- the Winter Soldier had not responded to any of the control words Schmidt had implanted -- and the very fact that he hadn't aged at all. He had hoped it was the serum, but found out in the mid '80s about the stasis tank. He tried to buy both tank and its contents from Karpov, who was having none of it. And then Karpov died and the Winter Soldier disappeared and Schmidt had not thought much about him. When HYDRA started making major inroads into Russia in 2012 and finding willing affiliates among the vor, Schmidt's agents heard of the deadly Yaakov Yachmenev and from there, it was short work to having the Winter Soldier himself standing ready to kill Captain America at Minyar.

Clint whistled in appreciation. "Lukin played Schmidt like a fucking Stradivarius if it went down like that."

Natasha, mouth full of the last fritter she'd somehow plucked from under his nose, raised her eyebrows in agreement.

"But the timing is funny. Not ha-ha funny." He took a sip of wine before continuing. "The Winter Soldier reappears right after the Battle of New York."

Right after the public return of both the Tesseract and Captain America, both of which had spurred Schmidt and HYDRA into action. What had they done for Lukin?  

Natasha picked out a filbert from the spiced nuts. "Lukin is too young to have any memories of World War II. He was born after it ended. But Karpov was in the Russian Army at Stalingrad and he was a legendary guerrilla fighter on the Western Front. He might have fought _with_ Steve -- the Commandos did a few missions that far east. And he'd probably have heard of the Tesseract -- the Nazis used the energy weapons primarily against the the Russians and Slavs."

They leaned back so that the waiter could take away the empty plate where the fritters had been. 

"Steve didn't seem to recognize the name," Clint pointed out. 

"He might not have known it," Natasha pointed out. "The Russian partisans were like the French -- they used pseudonyms."

But Karpov was the guy who'd brought the brainwashed James Barnes into Russia and the Red Room, then over to the Monster House to finally become the Winter Soldier. Steve would have researched the guy because this was the man who'd taken an American soldier -- an _ally_ \-- and turned him into one of America's greatest dangers. And he had known all along, just as Schmidt had, that Barnes had someone very important who'd be grateful for his return. 

"I think we need to see what SHIELD actually has on Karpov and what the real story is," Clint said. "Hero of the Fatherland, Director of the KGB, blahblahblah, that's the easy stuff. You don't do what he did to James Barnes without a screw loose or a serious ax to grind or both. And I think if we find out what Karpov thought he was doing, we find out what Lukin is up to."

The entrees came and they focused on that for a few minutes before Natasha put her fork down and Clint looked up. 

"What do we tell Steve?" 

Clint cocked an eyebrow. "Everything. Why?" 

Natasha gave him a look he recognized, the one that said that all of the same reasons they'd been holding things back so far -- and were still holding things back because Clint was sure that Steve didn't know about the possibility of a clone in Latveria -- were still valid. And that Clint had been the instigator of those redactions in the past. 

He turned his attention to his fish. "I told him I wasn't going to pass on rumors, but this isn't a rumor. And if he can tell us anything about Karpov, then we're up in the game."

Natasha frowned at him. She was naturally more reticent and too often too much like Fury for anyone's good and never more than when it came to sharing information. Her need-to-know threshold was even lower than Fury's and it had taken years for Clint to learn how to lambada well enough to clear it. She needed to raise it here, though. 

"We can't keep this up and expect him to keep forgiving us."

Which was why, two weeks later, the three of them were on the Staten Island Ferry to go for Sri Lankan food in Tottenville. Over pithus and hoppers and goat lamprie and vegetable curry, they told him about what they knew, about the timing of it all, and what they suspected it might mean. 

Steve took it with solemn acceptance and without any anger or even much surprise. 

"It's crossed my mind," he admitted sadly. "That Bucky is back to kill me. That Schmidt wasn't the only one who wanted him to. But I can't let that be a consideration. I have to focus on how he's visible and we can get to him and bring him home."

"Steve," Natasha began with a sigh but he waved her off. 

"I'm not being a pollyanna," Steve assured. "I know that there are a lot of ways this can go very, very badly. But I can't function if that's what I focus on. I have to focus on what I need to happen, not on what I fear might happen."

There was nothing else to do on that front but agree to work on Karpov and order dessert. 


	5. Chapter 5

"... saying he's the next Keith Hernandez. But if you're going to stock your middle infield with guys with only a vague notion of which way to throw if they want to aim at first base, you trade a couple of home runs per year to not have to fish your ball out of the dugout three times a game." Clint took a swig from his water bottle -- no beer at the start of a game that began before noon -- then gestured with it toward third base, where the Pirate was currently standing clapping his hands in self-appreciation for what was a bunt triple until the official scorer got through with assigning blame.

Steve sighed and unearthed the lunches he'd brought for them from his backpack. "That was not a good start to the game."

Clint had been more than a little wary of going to a baseball game that had a ridiculous 11:35am start time so as to allow thousands of day campers to attend without having to leave early -- he was fine with day baseball, of course, but Camp Day games meant tens of thousands of screaming children and why would anyone not being paid to sit through that do so? But Steve had been insistent and had pointed out that there would be entire sections of upper deck practically unoccupied and Clint liked to sit up top, anyway. And he'd offered to bring food and they hadn't gone all season yet and so Clint had agreed because Steve was looking a little ragged around the edges because, by hook or by crook (mostly the latter because Tony had his uses), he'd gotten what he'd wanted and now had more access to the Winter Soldier material than he'd had before.

Also, there was the promise of a postgame stop at the Lemon Ice King of Corona and Clint's missionary zeal could not resist the chance to bear witness to that miracle and seek one more convert.

The Pirate on third somehow failed to score despite there being only one out at the time he arrived at said base and they went to the bottom of the first without too much despair.

And then Steve's phone rang. Steve pulled it out of his pocket and stared at the face for a moment. Clint leaned over to look because he was nosy and because Steve was clearly confused by what he was seeing.

"Who do you know in Israel?" he asked, curious, because he recognized the area code. "Besides Schmidt and he doesn't have call privileges."

Steve shook his head and shrugged and hit the button to accept the call. "Hello?... Who?... How did... Okay, hold on a second, I'm going to put you on speaker." Which he did while pulling Clint in by the elbow so he could hear, too. There wasn't anyone around them, so eavesdropping wasn't going to be a problem. 

"Start from the beginning," Steve commanded.

"My name is Jarno Ahtola," a very terrified and not-Israeli voice began. "I am a propulsion engineer at Wellcome Aeronautics in Haifa. I was given a package by Doctor Jane Foster to hold and keep safe. She said that if anything happened, I should call you. There are men with guns looking for the package and they are killing people. They are going to kill me."

Clint exchanged a look with Steve -- what the hell? -- then gestured at the phone to indicate that he should keep Ahtola talking. He leaned away and pulled out his own phone, calling Coulson. "Put a tap-and-trace on Steve's phone _now_ ," he said in a low voice as soon as Coulson picked up. "And call Shabak and tell them that Wellcome Aeronautics in Haifa is under assault and it's not a couple of shaheeds looking for their virgins."

Coulson didn't ask what was going on, just confirmed the instructions and stayed on the line. Clint leaned back to hunch with Steve over his phone, holding his own to his other ear but the mouthpiece end away. There were a million questions to be asked, starting with why Jane Foster was handing out Captain America's phone number and what she was up to that she was giving something of apparent great value to a random Finn in Haifa and not to SHIELD or an Avenger or to Thor, who would gladly shed blood to protect anything she held valuable. But he didn't think they would have the time to get those answers. 

"...said it would be better if I didn't know, but I know what her specialization is," Ahtola was saying. "Oh, god, they're getting closer. I need to--"

"You need to put your cell phone down, out of sight," Clint cut him off, speaking firmly. "Under a desk, under a cabinet, somewhere where we can still hear everything. And then you need to get out of there. Can you get to safety?"

Harsh breathing on the phone, short breaths with the occasional whimper of fear. "I can't get out of the lab," Ahtola reported, voice breaking as he realized that his call for help would not save him. "They're in the halls. I can hear the screaming and the gunfire. They're coming here. I have the box."

In the corner of his eye, Clint could see a cotton candy vendor, a streak of pink and blue disappearing from his field of vision. 

"Can you find a place to hide?" Clint asked, closing his eyes to try to imagine a room he had never seen. "Nowhere near the box, nowhere near your phone. Is there a closet or a table in a corner?"

"Yes, but I--"

"We'll be here," Steve assured with the calm, controlled voice of Captain America, the voice that made everything less terrifying because it never wavered. Steve's eyes showed that he was thinking what Clint was thinking, that they were about to listen to a man die. But he kept it out of his voice. "You won't be alone. You won't _ever_ be alone. Go hide yourself, Jarno. Now."

They heard the sound of the phone being put down and possibly covered by a piece of paper, nothing heavy that would muffle sound, and then the very faint click that might have been a closet door opening and closing. In Clint's other ear, Coulson informed him that the Haifa police were already responding to an incident at that address that had been reported fifteen minutes ago, that Shabak had been called, and that SHIELD had established a tap on Steve's phone and were recording. In the stadium, the PA said something and twelve thousand kids screamed in response; thankfully, they were all in the sections below and it didn't drown out the sounds from the phone, but Clint and Steve both had to lean closer even as Steve held it up. 

What they heard from Haifa was a crash and then less violent noises, then distant voices that weren't understandable at first but then quickly got louder and resolved themselves into Russian.

"Ah, shit," Clint muttered in a low voice as they listened to the room be ransacked and then a voice call out "Here it is!"

"Close it and give it to me," a familiar Moscow-accented voice commanded sharply. "Go find the others."

Clint saw Steve's eyes go wide in recognition. His Russian had gotten much better with Natasha to work on his fluency, but it was the voice that was important, not the words. 

They listened as the room was searched for papers, methodically and without the banging and crashing that had been used to find the box. And then they heard a cry as the closet door was opened. Jarno Ahtola begged for his life, in English and Finnish, but to no avail. They heard the shots -- a double-tap -- and then glass breaking and more paper shuffling that got louder until there was no sound but a sharp, ugly laugh.

"Good, but not good enough," the Winter Soldier said in English and then the call was disconnected.

A half-beat later, the screaming in the stadium redoubled because David Wright had just homered to tie the game. 

Clint looked over at Steve, who was already starting to pack up his things. 

"We'll have a jet ready for you two to bring you up to the Helicarrier when you get to 44th Street," Coulson said. "You'll probably be leaving for Haifa today."

With a heavy pat to Steve's shoulder, Clint stood up and, after a beat, Steve did, too. A guy in a Santana t-shirt yelled at them for not waiting until the inning was over -- Clint apologized, it _was_ poor form -- as they made their way down the stairs. Once they were on the concession concourse heading for the escalators, they could hear music and more prompting from the PA announcer for the kids to let loose. 

"You want to take the train or the bike?" Steve asked once they were outside the stadium. Steve would have to take the bike, but the 7 train rattling above them went to Times Square, too, and Steve knew Clint wasn't overfond of riding shotgun on highways.

"I'll deal with the bike," Clint answered.

Thirty-five minutes later, they were aboard a quinjet taking them to the Helicarrier. The police and security services were on the scene in Haifa, Coulson updated them through the jet's comms, but there'd been no sign of the attackers. And no survivors. The Israelis were none too pleased to be getting calls from SHIELD about violence happening live on their own soil, but were cooperating fully, at least once they understood that no, there was no way to have anticipated this one because SHIELD didn't know what the hell was going on, either.

"We haven't told them that it's the Winter Soldier yet, have we?" Clint asked dryly. "They're going to be a little less gracious once we 'fess that up."

He wondered what the Israelis would say when they found out that the Winter Soldier was real, let alone that he was a brainwashed American. If that part even got told; there were obvious reasons not to want to share anything about the existence of the Winter Soldier, but some of them conflicted with their stated hope that they bring him in alive. But the Winter Soldier was currently neither aware of nor in support of that hope and his body count was growing exponentially and that, too, was going to have to factor in. Sooner than later. Clint didn't know how Steve would handle the mathematics of saving James Barnes versus saving all of the people the Winter Soldier was going to kill before that could happen. But that was a calculation that was going to have to be made at some point and they -- all of them -- were going to have to deal with the answer.

There was more news by the time the jet got to the Helicarrier, which was currently in the North Atlantic traveling back to the East Coast after a visit to the North Sea as part of some arrangement Fury had with the British security services. Jane Foster was not answering her cell phone and hadn't been in to her office in three weeks, which apparently was not that unusual and so nobody had considered her to be missing. There was still no actual evidence that she _was_ missing -- she went into the field regularly, far more so than her SHIELD minders would prefer and very often with no advance warning -- and, since no one had gotten into her apartment yet, for all anyone knew, she was currently in bed enjoying a romp with Thor and simply wasn't one of the 42 percent of women who admitted to checking their phones during sex.

"Doctor Foster's sex habits are about to be the least of our problems," Tapper said as he walked into the outer office of Fury's suite holding up a tablet with graphs on it. They were waiting for Fury to finish whatever he was doing that was more important than this, which his secretary-slash-real-boss, Hsiang, insisted would be imminently but that had been more than five minutes ago. "We got a spike on Doctor Banner's gamma radiation sensor. In Haifa, timestamped exactly to when Doctor Foster's box was opened by the Winter Soldier's people."

Fury's door opened to admit them less than a minute later.

It took twenty minutes before Bruce could be brought in on a VTC, by which point Tony, Selvig, and various researchy people already had been introduced and they'd played the audio of the call from Jarno Ahtola, with Steve filling in the parts that had taken place before the recording had begun. Ahtola's connection to Foster had already been discovered -- he'd been a graduate student of one of Foster's exes, apparently -- and they were engaged in a discussion about what the hell could have possibly mimicked the Tesseract in its energy signature and why Foster (a) had had it, (b) had handed it to someone she barely knew along with (c) telling him to call Captain America if he ran into trouble with it. Which were all questions Clint had asked himself earlier, before they knew it had anything to do with the Tesseract, and he still had no great answers to them now that they did. Although he did have the usual creeping nausea that came with any long discussion of the Tesseract and its adventures on Earth.

"Whatever it is, I can't see why you're surprised she didn't hand it over to you," Tony said. "Considering your past history of possession -- let's see, you tried to use it as a weapon _against Asgard_ and then let it got stolen by Loki to be used to further the very invasion you were hoping to prevent, in the process causing billions of dollars in damages to one of the world's most important cities. That _definitely_ deserves a second chance. Or would it be a third?"

"Tony," Steve warned, but without heat. Clint didn't think Steve actually disagreed with the facts, just the snarky tone. Clint didn't disagree with either, but he was a little bit less irreplaceable than those two.

Once Bruce showed up virtually -- Clint loved that Bruce did not consider VTCs worth the bother of combing his hair or putting on a clean shirt -- the discussion turned more heavily to the science-y stuff and Clint allowed himself to zone a little. His understanding of physics was entirely practical and almost exclusively limited to mechanics and so his understanding of radiation did not extend past "good for frozen dinners and popcorn, bad for people." He knew that gamma radiation was what had given Bruce his alter ego, although not what differentiated gamma radiation from whatever powered his microwave or the average nuclear submarine, and he knew that Natasha had originally been sent to bring Bruce in because the Tesseract also produced gamma radiation. And that was it, so when Bruce started insisting that no, there wasn't a mock Tesseract because no, this wasn't something that could have been synthesized in a lab without anyone realizing it, Clint had no choice to accept it on faith.

"Could it be a shard of the Tesseract?" Steve asked. "Something someone chipped off at some point?"

"No!" Tony, Selvig, and Bruce answered almost together and with great feeling.

"If you tried to do that, you'd end up obliterating most of the solar system," Bruce continued in a gentler tone. "It's a source of power on a scale we don't have the proper means to measure. We can't count that high. The best we've been able to do is harness some of it and, for all that it has been used to open dimensional portals, it still hasn't been bled off enough for us to measure the decrease in capacity. Trying to destroy it or break it apart, there's no way to survive that." 

"So what are we looking at?" Fury asked. "Is it possible that there's a second Tesseract?"

"Not likely," Selvig answered. "There's no evidence to support such a claim. The myths that led Schmidt to find the original only ever mentioned the one and Thor himself has always believed that there was only one -- something he apparently verified in Asgard. Doctor Banner's sensor has been running continuously since its launch and has not recorded any readings anywhere near this high before today. Also, from my research, I believe that if there were a second Tesseract, the two would react in some way."

"Like an awareness?" Tapper asked.

"More like two very strong magnets," Selvig answered. "Either there would be great affinity -- or its opposite."

There was more science-y stuff to talk about, plus the question of how anyone in Latveria had found out about it when nobody at SHIELD had known, but the end result was that there was a reasonable possibility that Jane Foster had somehow come back into possession of the Tesseract and then given it to Jarno Ahtola in Haifa to hold on to, a favor that had cost him his life. This wasn't reasonable in any normal sense of the word, of course, just that nobody could come up with a less batshit scenario to fit the facts as they had them. Foster was nowhere to be found and they had, unbelievably, no better way to contact Thor than to leave a note and hope Heimdall saw it. And, by the way, Steve and Clint were getting flown directly from the Helicarrier to Haifa via quinjet, so they better hope they had clean underwear in their lockers. 

(They did, since this would not be the first or the fifth time they'd have to be thrown into a go-bag.) For the sake of comfort and trying to maintain some kind of low profile, they opted to wear a reasonable facsimile of standard SHIELD gear -- neither of the owned the sleek bodysuit -- and leave their uniforms behind. Clint was a known quantity in Israel and Steve would prefer it if he remained unknown and there wasn't much likelihood of getting caught in a fight with the Winter Soldier because the Israelis still hadn't found any trace of him or his crew. There was half a thought put to eating something before heading off, but Clint assured Steve that breakfast in the Middle East -- it would be oh-dark-thirty Israeli time when they got there -- would be worth the wait. 

"I was feeling all offended that you were visiting everywhere but here," a familiar voice greeted them as the ramp of the jet lowered six hours later. "You go to Egypt, you go to Lebanon, you go to Syria, and yet you don't come here, where we actually like you for some strange reason. But if this is what you need to visit, then fuck off and go home."

"Nice to see you too, Eitan." Clint smiled and shook the outstretched hand, accepting a firm pat on the shoulder that turned into a quick bro-hug. "What are you doing here?"

Eitan was an agent in Shabak's Arab Affairs department and while they'd worked together a number of times back when Eitan had been with Aman, this particular case was far out of his jurisdiction. Granted, it was pretty fucking far out of Clint's, too, but his job description was a little fuzzier than Eitan's these days. 

"Let's just say that my bosses didn't want to take your bosses at their word that this was not something that I needed to be involved in," Eitan replied with a 'what can you do?' shrug. "Your president is busy kissing our enemies' asses and so when we get a call saying that the Americans don't think the attack we just had has anything to do with our enemies, we don't say 'sure, okay, we'll go do something else now,' yeah? Especially when the guy they send to help out has just been on the grand tour of our neighbors' biggest messes."

Which was an explanation Clint couldn't really argue with as a self-defense strategy. 

"Well, these two Americans are damned sure the mess you have has nothing to do with your department," he said instead. "Also, why are your friends following me around?" 

Eitan smiled. "You are dangerous and an expert on the region, Clint, and Nick Fury does not send you on kebab runs. We're happier knowing where you are and why."

Clint grinned at Steve. "I'm big here," he announced as if he were impressed. 

"Only because they use the metric system," Steve replied and Eitan nearly choked for laughing. 

"Fuck you both," Clint growled, emphasizing it with a double bird-flip. "Where's breakfast?"

Breakfast was on the other side the morning's work. Wellcome Aeronautics, the top two floors of a three-story building, was already in the process of being turned from the scene of a crime to the scene of a tragedy; the bodies had been removed and the blood washed away and the place smelled strongly of disinfectant. The place was still a mess, though, broken windows and broken doors and bullet holes in the walls. Eitan took them through the small building on the same path as the Winter Soldier and his team, all the way to the lab where Jarno Ahtola had hidden and died. Clint could see the phone on the table, dropped by the Winter Soldier on top of a pile of graphs and printouts. There was the closet Ahtola had hidden in. The blood was gone, but the freshly-cleaned spot on the floor indicated where he'd died. It didn't match up at all to what had been in Clint's head at the time, but why should it?

He turned to ask Steve something, but Steve was by the table, holding something and with his back to Clint, so he walked over. It was a photo of a dark-haired man with a brunette wife and two small boys at what were probably the ruins at Caesarea. Clint looked away.

"The fellow who died here was on the phone when he was killed," Eitan said, gesturing toward the phone. "It was an outgoing call to a New York City number, but we can't get any info on who it is. We can't trade for it, we can't hack it, and nobody will even tell us why. Which means it was someone important and that, coupled with the area code and the fact that you are here... was it you he was calling, Clint? Fury himself?"

Steve put down the photograph. "It was me," he said, turning around to face Eitan.

Eitan nodded once. "Then who are you really and why was Doctor Ahtola calling you instead of his wife?"

Clint had only introduced him as Steve, not to be coy but because even in Israel, the job got more complicated if everyone knew that Captain America was wandering around and Steve was in no mood to deal with that sort of celebrity right now. 

"You'd better go wake up the people who are going to be taking this case from you, Eitan, because I think we only want to go through this once."

It took an hour to get people from other agencies and other units of Shin Bet. It was one of the latter, Irit-from-Protective-Security, who gave Steve a cockeyed look and asked him if he was Captain America. Next to Clint, Eitan muttered a couple of really fabulous obscenities in Arabic.

Fury had briefed him and Steve before they'd left about what they could and could not tell the Israelis, which boiled down to not telling them anything about the Winter Soldier and being vague as fuck about what got stolen from Ahtola. ("But make it very clear that it's SHIELD property." "Thor might have an issue with that." "Well Thor can bring his issue when he comes to explain why he left the most powerful energy source in the universe in an unlocked box in Haifa.") 

Yasha Yachmenev's name could be used if required, since it wasn't a name that was widely known within the Kremlin. ("He didn't _have_ a name as far as anyone was concerned," Natasha had explained at some point in the past. "He was just the Winter Soldier. Yaakov Stepanovich Yachmenev was just what they put down on a form somewhere because they needed a name and so that's what he used because he didn't know his own.") They could tell the Israelis that the attackers had been a Russian mercenary team probably working for Latveria and leave it up to them to decide if it was Lukin or Doom. Clint thought that pretty shady, but Fury had cocked his visible eyebrow and asked if Clint knew for sure himself.

And so they told the Israelis about Ahtola being given something he should never have been near and how a team of Russian mercenaries being paid out of bank accounts in Doomstadt had come and taken it from him. Which was entirely true as far as it went and the Israelis understood that it wasn't nearly the whole story and that they just had to hope that SHIELD wasn't leaving out the good parts again. (SHIELD had gifted them with Johann Schmidt; they got a little more forgiveness here than in other quarters.)

Eitan called his boss and said yeah, this was not a matter for the Arab Affairs department and, after a breakfast at an outdoor cafe, turned them over to Irit and wished them well. The balance of the day was spent trying to figure out where the Winter Soldier and his team had gone after leaving Wellcome.

"The options are land, sea, air, or they went to ground," Irit started to explain. "We've got no leads on anything right now. They did a slick job on the building security system and we don't even know if they drove up or walked."

Wellcome shared a building with a travel agency and an accountant's office that had both closed hours before the attack and the lot across the street was a building under construction that had been halted two weeks earlier due to missing permits -- a perfect place to watch Wellcome and plan the attack. The particulars of the occupancy (or lack thereof) meant that road traffic was light and pedestrian traffic nonexistent and there were no road signs or traffic lights to force drivers to slow or halt, so getting witnesses would be impossible. 

"Scratch land," Steve said. "A border crossing is too risky."

Irit smiled at him and Clint wondered, not for the first time today, if she were flirting with Captain America. "Most probably," she agreed.

"If they're going out by air," Dror, Irit's partner, added, "They'd have to stagger their departures because there's no way a half-dozen Russian hard men get through the airport at once without anyone noticing."

Clint, who had yet to get into or out of Israel flying commercial without being harassed at least once, agreed wholeheartedly. "I say it's by sea and they're probably having lunch in Tyre."

There were arguments for other destinations and the ability of the Israeli shore patrol, which had experience at this sort of thing, to intercept, but if Clint were planning an escape from Haifa and hoped to live through the experience, he got on a boat before it was light and went north and stopped well short of Beirut. He wasn't intimidated by the threat of UNIFIL and he doubted that the Winter Soldier would be, either. 

Because of the irregular nature of their arrival in Israel -- no passports, no entry stamps -- and the problems that would result from a commercial flight home, they got a quinjet ride back to New York, which was uncomfortable but nothing two old soldiers couldn't handle. They each took a bench and stretched out as much as they were able and didn't even bother sitting up when Hill called in to debrief them. 

* * *

"Well _that_ was the most fun I've had all week," Clint announced as he sat down across from Natasha and next to Steve in the commissary. "I'm sure the Security Council would appreciate that Fury talks to them the same way he talks to gods. By which I mean disrespectfully and full of himself."

He picked up his fork, then switched the grip to a defensive one in anticipation of Natasha stealing one of his chili cheese fries. She'd been reaching but then stopped because of that one time when he'd actually drawn blood that had been an accident but she'd never believed it to be. (Sometimes it was kind of obvious that Natasha had been raised by wolves; he'd never actually hurt a friend over a french fry, but they'd drawn each other's blood already, so why not here?) He pushed the tray toward her with his fork down so that she could pick her fry, which she did, smiling girlishly at him.

Steve, working his way through veggie lasagna with grim determination, looked up. "I don't think he's been told that his opinion doesn't matter in a while. At least by anyone in a position to mean it."

The note to Heimdall had taken the better part of two weeks to be answered and when that answer came, it had not been what Fury -- or any of them -- had maybe expected. It hadn't been Thor turning up to either explain why the Tesseract was back on Earth or help get it back -- or to say he knew where Jane Foster was. It had been an emissary from 'Frigga the All-Mother' telling them that Thor was busy, Jane was with them, and no, there would be no assistance from Asgard when it came to retrieving the Tesseract, although they did expect its return to Asgardian possession once it had been retrieved.

At which point Fury had apparently lost his shit. There were rumors that threats of war had been made over possession of the Tesseract, but whether any had been exchanged and who had made them, nobody seemed to have any good intel. Clint had demanded details from Coulson under the "you owe me for pretending you were dead for years" clause, but all Coulson would cough up was that a frustrated Fury had taken out one of the video screens with a well-aimed paperweight. ("Which screen?" "CCTV World News." "Thought it would've been MSNBC." "They had puppies on the screen.")

The panel had been replaced by the time the Avengers had gotten called in to their meeting and Fury's desk had been notably clean of any possible projectile weapons -- his pencil cup had been on Hsiang's desk when Clint had passed by en route.

"Fury hasn't been told off since the last time the Tesseract got taken," Natasha agreed, dropping more bread chunks into her soup. 

"Wouldn't know," Clint said as he shoveled chili cheese fries into his mouth. The Helicarrier commissary, as ever, took pride in their incompetence at cooking food from scratch, but they were actually fine when it came to defrosting pre-made food and opening cans, which was why his lunch was better than what either Steve or Natasha had chosen.

Steve shot him a sidelong glance to see how sour that comment had really been meant to be. Clint had been going for 'wry' instead of 'bad flashback,' so he offered Steve a fry. He took one, carefully selecting one that had both chili and cheese on it.

"You still going to Washington?" Natasha asked Steve, who nodded, but swallowed before answering in words.

"I'm sure they'd understand if I backed out, but I understand why I can't," he said and Clint belated realized that this was that ceremony at Joint Base McChord-Lewis that Steve had been mentioning on and off for the past month and not some trip down to DC to gladhand politicians. "It's only a two-day trip and it's a good event and, as much as I don't like it, I'm the bellwether of SHIELD's panic level as far as the outside world goes."

Captain America cancelling a scheduled event would have been a thing, it would have been pointed out. It would have meant something was up, which in turn would have had people asking what that something was and possibly alerting Latveria that that something was them. Even when it wasn't -- yes, they were focusing all of their attention on the Tesseract, but they still had no proof that it was either in Latveria at all or that Doom had been the engineer of its theft. Lukin could have been out for himself and if he were, the Tesseract could be anywhere. Two weeks of constant work turning over every stone, poking into every dark corner, and the Balkans Desk probably not sleeping at any point since, and they had next to nothing. What little they did have had been enough to send Clint back to Lebanon to try to track the Tesseract's movement from there to Latveria and to send Natasha to Romania, the one neighbor Latveria wasn't permanently pissed at, but that had already been grasping at straws and had produced nothing. The Tesseract had either not been so much as looked at or had been looked at at the bottom of a lead-lined cave under an ocean because the sensors had detected nothing in the way of the allegedly tell-tale spikes of gamma radiation. And so Steve getting sent to Washington wasn't going to be taking him away from a more urgent mission because neither Fury nor Hill (nor Coulson) could -- or would -- give him one. Which had frustrated him enough to be testy with Fury, who after his earlier showdown with the Asgardian royal notebringer had been in no mood for back-talk.

A text from Tapper had Steve making his apologies and heading off, leaving Clint and Natasha alone. 

"He's about to do something, isn't he," Clint asked, not bothering to make it a question. "I think we've all realized by now that Steve suddenly getting cooperative when he's pissed off is a warning bell, right?"

Because fuck the old newsreels and history books -- and the new youtube clips, for that matter. Captain America was about as insubordinate as they came.

Natasha shrugged and stirred her soup. " _We_ have, Fury may be a different story."

Clint rather thought Fury knew, but also had the ego and arrogance to think that Steve wouldn't try it again or could be outmaneuvered if he did. It wasn't a plan for success either way, but maybe Fury needed to relearn some lessons.

It was a week later and Clint was enjoying the scenic Route Two highlights - lovely vistas, crazy-ass Israeli drivers -- when Steve apparently decided it was time to start teaching those lessons. "Did you know that Cap was filing for a tourist visa for Latveria?" Tapper asked when Clint answered his phone.

"Hello to you, too," Clint replied. "And no. According to my pay stub, I am not Captain America's nanny."

Irit-from-Protective-Security-who-had-probably-been-flirting-with-Cap watched the very short phone conversation with frank bemusement. Clint maybe wished she'd keep her eyes on the road a little more. "Trouble?" she asked mildly after he told Tapper to stop bothering him and go bother Steve and hung up.

"Nah," he replied, pocketing his phone. "Just some family squabbling."

He'd taken a red-eye to Tel Aviv this morning to be briefed on what the Israelis had been doing in the three weeks since the assault. They'd managed to get security footage of a cell phone company truck that had been nowhere near where it was supposed to have been, although it hadn't been reported stolen. In fact, the driver who had taken the truck out that morning had been spotted behind the wheel -- a Russian emigre, he'd been arrested last week -- and he'd confessed to driving the Winter Soldier and his team (names unknown, of course) up to Acre and leaving them by the harbor. Irit had offered to take him up to Acre, which he had initially thought to decline because he wasn't sure he'd get anything useful out of it, but Irit had apparently been stationed near there during her earliest days in Shabak and knew people who knew people who smuggled things in and out of Lebanon. Clint knew people, too, but he had better connections with folks who made illicit trips to Lebanon from Cyprus and Turkey and Egypt. And so he was currently enjoying a white-knuckle ride north.

Once there, it took three demitasses of coffee (and a pee break) to get the name of a guy who ran a semi-regular route between Nahariya and a dump point north of the Blue Line and where he was likely to be. Clint was trying to figure out a polite way to ditch Irit -- this would be much easier without a woman along, let alone a woman who might be ID'ed as security services -- when she handed him the name of a restaurant with an address and told him that if he wasn't there by 9pm, she was showing up with armed friends.

"I don't look like a whore and these guys get suspicious of women who aren't," she replied with a shrug when he cocked an eyebrow at the piece of paper. "I'm serious about the armed friends, though. Don't make us take down the entire Acre underworld just because you're one of Nick Fury's favorite toys and we promised to return you in working order."

Clint smiled. "If you knew how displeased he was with me right now, you'd rethink the use of force."

He wasn't exactly dressed for shady undercover work, although jeans and a t-shirt were hardly inappropriate work wear for the task at hand, plus he didn't have any of his cover IDs with him, so he just took his cash and gave Irit his wallet and asked her not to run his credit card up too high. She took his phone, too, and handed him a burner. "Don't bother calling Captain America," he warned her as she pocketed his. "Fury's even more pissed off with him right now."

The meeting place was an Arab restaurant near enough to the water to be attractive to the men who worked there but far enough inland to be unappealing to tourists or anyone else not put off by the grimy exterior. 

Because smuggling in this part of the Med wasn't that big a fishbowl, Clint was not all that surprised to find out that Benny, the guy Irit's guys had given him as a contact, knew Sami, one of his best movers in Beirut. After some sniffing about and a call to Sami, Benny was willing to talk people smuggling. He had heard about the search for the Russians, yeah, but he didn't know anyone who would risk taking them. He certainly wouldn't have.

"They kill people," Benny explained with his pronounced Tripoli accent. "You do a job for them, do a good job, and they still kill you because maybe they think you'll talk. Who needs that?"

Which more or less confirmed what the Israelis had said, which was that they couldn't find any hint of who might have smuggled the Winter Soldier's team north. They were prepared to shift resources to investigating other methods of escape, but Clint wasn't so quick to abandon what had been, admittedly, his own idea.

"How hard would it be to do it themselves?" Clint asked. He'd told Benny that he was in the employ of someone who felt that the item the Russians had stolen belonged to him, which had the advantage of being close enough to the truth, and Benny had accepted that, along with Sami's assurance that yeah, Clint was as crazy and as dangerous as he sounded. "Get a boat, go north at night?"

Benny took a drag off of his cigarette and tapped ash off in a beer-labeled ashtray under the No Smoking sign. "If I had money for this kind of operation, to hire Russian spies to steal something, I don't take a shitty little boat up the coast to another shitty little town. I get myself a yacht and go to Cyprus or up to Turkey or all the way to Greece. The Greeks don't give a fuck, you give them money, they don't care what you are bringing or what you speak at home."

Clint had never had the kind of money to rent a yacht to enable any of his seaside escapes and wasn't sure if he should be kicking himself for not thinking of that earlier. "Wouldn't a yacht be hard to hide -- you need registration, you have to file with the harbormaster, people see you, stuff like that?"

Benny waved his cigarette-holding hand as if to swat the idea of trouble away. "With a little work and a little money, not a problem. Especially here. Down in Haifa and up in Nahariya, the harbors are bigger and there are more people to pay off and more people watching you. Here, it's smaller, you can be a pleasure cruiser in for a few days, no problem. Especially for Russians, even hard men Russians like these -- they get themselves a pretty girl in a bikini, a few girls in bikinis even better, and they're a party cruise. They're Russians and here in Akka, nobody thinks they have any manners. They go off in the middle of the night, nobody's going to think about it, they're just going to be happy they're gone."

Clint asked Benny if there was anyone to talk to at the harbor here that would know what the harbormaster would not and got a name. He gave Benny a large wad of US dollars and wished him goodnight. Once outside the restaurant, he did countersurveillance to make sure he wasn't being followed and then headed inland, in the direction he'd come in, to find Irit. Which was harder than it looked because even in a small town like Acre, if you had never seen a map of the place, a street address did you no good. He finally had to give up and use the burner phone to call and get her to lead him to her. 

"I was temped to call Captain America and talk dirty," Irit told him when she handed him back his phone and wallet. "But I restrained myself."

Clint tried to imagine the look on Steve's face when he got that phone call. "You can do it now if you want," he offered, holding out the phone. "I think I'd pay money to witness that." 

They had dinner at a quiet place that was patterned after a Turkish balikci and served fish that had been caught meters away, looking for all the world like a couple out on a date but actually talking about what Benny had told him. Irit thought that tracking a yacht that had been in Acre on the day of the assault but missing the day after would not be so hard and if there was one such yacht, then maybe they could get somewhere. 

"You know these guys, yeah?" Irit prompted. "You aren't telling us, but you do."

Clint made a face and took a drink. "I know who one of them is, not the others."

"And he's the one you want so badly," she said with a nod. "This is personal, yeah?"

Clint chuckled darkly. "For different reasons for different people, but, yeah."

If she only knew. But it was better if she didn't. 

"Maybe we'll get him for you."

He shook his head. "Honestly, I hope you never come anywhere near him. He's the best the Russians ever produced and he's ruthless, even by our standards."

Irit started to protest, defend her skill or her country's skill or whatever, but Clint waved her off. "Let me tell you a story I learned in Beirut. This guy, he shows up there during one of the crazy periods to do a job that's going to take a few days. An assassination. While he's scouting the kill site, he gets a room in a penzione run by an old widow. He is a model guest when he is there -- clean, polite, fixes the widow's leaky sink, helps her with the shopping, gives candy to the urchins cluttering her doorstep. He's the grandson she never had. He does what he came to town to do and afterward, a car drives by that he hadn't planned on being there, so then blows up the penzione with the widow and the urchins inside. Because someone might have seen him exiting the kill site."

That was a story he had not felt the need to include in his mission debrief, on the assumption Steve would read it; he just reported that yeah, the Winter Soldier was known to certain elements in Lebanon and yes, they were sure it was him. But no, they hadn't seen him in the last month.

"We've been tracking him for months and the job in Haifa was the first one where he didn't waste a few of his own guys himself because they were slowing him down."

Irit stabbed at a piece of potato. "You survived, didn't you?" she asked, looking up and meeting his gaze challengingly. "You've met him before."

"Only because he wanted me to," he replied, unconsciously flexing the shoulder the Winter Soldier had shot. "I was a toy to him. Not even a very good one. And I have the scars to prove it."

The bullet furrows were going to be permanent marks, but most everything else had or would fade with time. 

The drive back down to Tel Aviv was quiet and faster because there was less traffic and Irit was still a crazy Israeli driver. About an hour in, Clint realized that he'd never checked in to his hotel. He'd figured to be in Tel Aviv all day and there'd have been time. 

"You think they'll still let me stay?" he asked. 

"Probably," Irit replied, accelerating to swerve around a small sedan. "Or you could just come home with me."

He looked over at her with a raised eyebrow, she looked over and raised her eyebrow right back at him, and he pointed at the windshield. "My answer won't matter if you get us killed before we get there."

The flight back to New York -- complete with ritual harassment at Ben Gurion -- was the next morning and he slept for most of it. When he turned his phone back on at Newark, there were two voicemails from Tapper and one from Coulson, so he decided to cut to the chase and call Steve. 

"Why are you making trouble for me?" he asked plaintively as he walked toward the monorail. "I get into enough on my own. Also, in what universe is you going to Latveria as a civilian a good idea?" 

He'd been pondering this since yesterday and it still made no sense. At best, it alerted the Latverians that SHIELD was looking into something because Captain America sure as shit was not taking a vacation in Doomstadt. At worst, Steve got into Latveria and was either promptly arrested for espionage or turned into a propaganda piece like Sean Penn or Dennis Rodman. 

"I wasn't actually going to file the online application," Steve replied, sounding one part apologetic and three parts completely unrepentant. "But I figured saving it as a draft on a computer at 44th Street would get some results. And it did, although I'm sorry you got dragged into it."

Clint stared at his phone in surprise. And possibly surprised horror. "Did you just use SHIELD's completely invasive monitoring against them?"

"Maybe," Steve admitted and Clint could tell he was smiling. 

He paid for his ticket and fed it into the machine. "You should call Stark and brag," he exhorted as he made his way to the platform. "Wake him up if you have to. He won't mind once you tell him why."

He waited until he was back in his apartment and showered and changed before calling Coulson and giving a report on what had gone on in Israel. Coulson took his notes, asked his questions, and then asked Clint what was going on with Captain America. 

"He's reminding you people -- _again_ \-- that he's not a child." 

Natasha, when he saw her the next day for drinks, was of the mind that Steve's stunt, while admittedly clever, was probably just a first move. "He's reading everything he can on Latveria and the Dooms, which is probably not as much as SHIELD has and I'd bet that his little trick was intended to rectify that. But he says that he wants something more beyond books and video."

When Steve's plane had gone down, Latveria had been just another small Eastern European monarchy that found itself caught between the rock and hard place of Russia and the Third Reich and losing itself in the struggle. When he woke up, Latveria was an isolationist banking powerhouse and someone had had to explain the Warsaw Pact to him. Clint got that part. It was the rest he couldn't figure out. 

"So we'll take him out to one of the Latverian restaurants in Richmond Hill," he said, swirling what was left of his beer in the bottom of his glass. "He can eat beef and cabbage dumplings, drink slivovitz, and play whatever the hell the Latverians call their version of bocce with the other old men. But that's not what this is about, is it?"

Natasha poked at the cherry at the bottom of her Old Fashioned with her swizzle stick. "It's about payback, I think."

Which was what Clint had been expecting, more or less. Steve against the man -- or men -- keeping Bucky Barnes prisoner. 

"So we keep him from waging a one-man invasion of Latveria," Clint sighed,finishing what was left of his beer and holding up the empty glass so the bartender would see it. "What else are friends for?" 


	6. Chapter 6

Costa Rica was a really beautiful country, Clint mused as he rode his bike up the dirt roads that curled up the mountainside. All lush greenery and pretty colors and peace and quiet once you got out of the touristy parts and San Jose. He could come back here on a vacation, bring his mountain bike, eat his weight in tropical fruit, spend some time on the beach maybe, hit up the ruins and the volcanic lakes and everything that had looked so inviting from the plane window.

He'd never been here before; the country hadn't had the kind of political or narcotic crises as its neighbors, hadn't become a hotbed of HYDRA activity, and it wasn't in his region of specialization, so there'd been no professional reasons to visit. And his vacations and leaves over the years had tended to be in CONUS because sometimes, after all of the far-flung places he'd been to, he just wanted to be in a place where he could drink the water, leave his gun and quiver hanging on the corner hooks, and the radio and TV were in English.

But he would seriously consider Costa Rica as a place worth traveling to when he wasn't on the clock. Provided he finished his current business here without a warrant and an extradition request on his head.

"It's someplace not hot and dry," Hill had shrugged when she'd handed him the tablet with the briefing files on it. As if Clint was being given a wetworks assignment based entirely on his hydration requirements. "It's got good coffee."

It had fabulous coffee, but the real reason Clint was being given this assignment instead of one of the other small cohort of snipers SHIELD had on its employ for entirely this kind of mission, was that it was payback.

Prince Omar had about seven names, none of which were actually Omar, and he wasn't quite a prince, although he was Emirati royalty through and through. But he'd been labeled Prince Omar because of his love for bling, for women, for booze, and for profligate spending on all three. He was so very ostentatious about it that it took Western agencies _years_ before they realized that he was putting that Wharton education to good use and was the money manager for half of the Middle East's most dangerous terror networks.

The original, still very-fucking-secret, orders had been capture, then capture or kill, and then (after a few problems with rendition and the threat of a civilian criminal trial for a terrorist) just kill the bastard. Finding him had proven difficult, though, and he had bankrolled the deaths of hundreds since then. So when the intel came in, got verified, got re-verified, and constant surveillance established, it had been a matter of who would get the call. And Clint didn't really think there'd been too much debate as to who that would be. Not when Clint had seven photographs of men he'd fought with and played with and drank with and lived with who'd died because of what Prince Omar's money-managing skills could buy his clients.

He hadn't done these kinds of ops for a few years, not when there was so much else he could do. It wasn't a relief or not a relief to have stopped doing it, just as it wasn't a relief or not a relief to be doing it again. He'd been a sniper of legend in the Army, but among actual professionals, killing was not something you bragged about, even within the privacy of your own mind, and Clint had never really felt the urge. He'd kept his book, changing ink colors when he'd moved from the Army to SHIELD, but that was a matter of record, not one of pride. He was good at what he did, full stop.

Prince Omar was living on a coffee plantation in a valley so perfectly green they could have used it as a postcard. The big house had a marble deck and a marble pool and that pool, when Clint set up his scope on top of his rifle, had two scantily clad local beauties lounging at the shallow end. He was perfectly happy to use the blonder one's tits as a landmark to adjust his sights.

He'd come prepared to stay a few days, ghillie suit, water bottles (and one very clearly different-by-touch bottle to pee in), energy bars, and a bunch of bananas he'd bought at a roadside stand on the drive up. He was 682 meters away from the artificially-enhanced-but-still-lovely set of 34Ds and Prince Omar had been so generous as to plant the perfect windsock at the far corner of the deck. (It was a bronze globe with brightly colored pennants attached to it, probably some ridiculous homage to the icons of status that had marked the tents of his royal ancestors before the Emirates had become a high-rise haven of oil barons served by indentured serfs from Bangladesh and the Philippines.) Prince Omar had gotten back into town three days ago and wasn't schedule to leave for another week. He would not be making that plane.

It took only a day. The bathing beauties had gone shopping that morning and returned home for lunch with bags and bags of things, but Omar had stayed behind and mostly indoors. Clint had seen him twice, once crossing the room that looked out on to the deck and once on the deck itself, but in the shaded corner with the umbrella-topped table and there'd been no good shot. But in the late afternoon, after their presumed siesta, they all three came out in their bathing suits and Clint put away the protein bar and systematically worked out the stiffness from his shoulders and arms before settling into position. Clint waited while Omar swam a few laps and then lounged in the pool, leaning against the side at an angle that completely blocked a clean shot. But then the brunette swam over to him and pulled him playfully into the center of the pool and they frolicked for a few minutes before Omar again retreated to the side of the pool to watch, but this time he was facing Clint dead-on.

"Oh, thank you, darling," Clint murmured to the brunette, who was currently untying the little string bow that held her very small bikini top in place. "I am very sorry for all of the celibacy I am about to cause you. It will be a genuine shame."

Because while Omar was busy enjoying his two pets entertaining each other in a most riveting fashion, Clint was doing a final check on wind speed and direction and didn't even need to adjust for distance because Omar was where the blonde had been the day before.

When it was over, Clint used the rifle's scope to take a picture to confirm the kill before packing his equipment up, policing his hide site, walking the distance to where he'd hidden his bike, and driving down to Limon, where the SHIELD team took his rifle and his gear and gave him a camera with a memory card full of touristy pictures and a plane ticket to Dallas, where he'd hang out for a couple of days before transiting to New York.

He'd been back for two days when his cell phone rang at 0845.

"You had better be needing bail or about to tell me you finally lost your virginity," Clint growled into the phone because he'd been out late last night. This morning. Whatever. 

"Can you come down to Philadelphia?" Steve asked and Clint sat up in bed, wide awake and irritation forgotten, because he knew what -- _who_ \-- was in Philly. 

"How's Peggy?" 

Peggy was fine, Steve quickly assured. Physically. Otherwise she was rattled and pissed off for being rattled because she'd walked in to her kitchen at barely past the crack of dawn to make herself tea and breakfast and there'd been something on her kitchen table: a red rose and a photograph of the Tesseract case next to yesterday's _Times of Latveria_. 

"We'll be there by noon," Clint promised. 

Natasha cursed him out in filthy Russian before he got a word in edgewise, but when she ran out of air, he explained the situation. "Your ex-boyfriend left a present for Steve's ex-girlfriend."

Steve hadn't said anything about the Winter Soldier, but if Clint were going to bet money on this, he'd bet on that. Peggy Carter was a former spy chief; she had a security system monitored by SHIELD and better than what anyone could get on the open market and there was zero chance she'd have forgotten to set it -- it would have been set for her. Zippy the local housebreaker wasn't getting in to Peggy Carter's kitchen. 

"I'll be at the corner of West End and 90th in twenty," she told him. It was nowhere near where she lived, but it was a Sunday morning after a Saturday night and it wasn't that far out of the way. 

Peggy was sitting in the living room when they arrived, Steve having opened the door. She looked fine, but there was a brittleness to her that had nothing to do with her age. Someone had broken into her home, which would have been enough to rattle anyone, but they'd done so and _she hadn't noticed_ and that, for a legendary spy, was an extra affront. That it had been an equally legendary killer -- Clint didn't think for a moment that Peggy hadn't drawn the same conclusions he had -- against whom she would have been powerless to raise an alarm, let alone defend herself... Actually, Clint thought she looked good, considering. 

Steve, however, looked like crap. 

"We stopped at Harold's in Edison on the way down," Natasha announced, holding up the heavy bags for Peggy to see. "I hope you still eat pastrami." 

Peggy smiled. "One of those is for Steve, I trust."

Steve got both bags for the time being and disappeared into the kitchen and Clint followed him after exchanging a look with Natasha, who went over to the couch to sit by Peggy. The two of them hadn't gotten off on the right foot the first few times, either because of whatever shit Natasha was pulling at the time or because they were two of the greatest lady spies ever or their personalities or whatever it had been. And that had been before Steve had even entered the picture, at which point things had gotten a lot worse -- it had been kind of horribly amusing to watch Natasha get so worked up over a nonogenarian she somehow perceived as a _threat_ \-- before getting a lot better. They weren't _friends_ , but they were friendly and the mutual suspicion had finally given way to mutual respect. 

Steve was unpacking the bags on the counter when Clint came in. "You want coffee?" he asked as Clint leaned against the fridge. "I made."

"Sure," Clint agreed. "But we brought Cel-Ray."

Celery soda. Nasty stuff, like ginger ale filtered through lawn trimmings, but Steve and Natasha loved it. 

Steve grinned when he pulled out the green cans, but it didn't go up to his eyes. 

"She's fine," Clint said. "She's fine and she's probably up to no good sitting there with Natasha. She wasn't in danger, although it will be a while before her nerves catch up with that. Yours, too."

Saying that Steve Rogers, biological age somewhere around twenty-seven, was completely in love with Peggy Carter, biological age somewhere around ninety-six, struck a lot of people as silly and funny and there'd been more than a few jokes about it at SHIELD. But not among anyone who knew Steve and saw the way he looked at her, the way his eyes followed her, because then you realized that he wasn't superimposing the gorgeous gal she'd been in the Forties over the dignified old lady she was now. He was seeing the person underneath, the person who probably hadn't changed nearly as much as the photograph, because that's what Steve did. It's why he put up with Tony no matter how bad he got after the Triple Bombings, it's why he put up with all of them with their flaws and sour dispositions and dirty consciences and bloody hands. And it's why it made perfect sense that his love for Peggy Carter would not be dimmed by the seventy years she had lived while he had slept. 

"She wasn't in danger," Clint repeated, since he was pretty sure that part hadn't sunk in. "They want your attention, which they have. Right now, that's all they want."

Steve put down the coleslaw bucket and rested his hands on the counter. "They already had my attention. They know they did. This is deeply personal for me and they know that, too." He looked over at Clint. "Everything the Winter Soldier does, everyone he kills, I have no choice but to take it all personally. They can hurt me that way. Why isn't that enough?" 

Clint wished he had an answer. They didn't know yet what the personal angle was over in Latveria. Doom had an ax to grind with the Stark family -- apparently Howard had refused to sell weapons to Victor's grandfather that could have helped him stave off the fascist coup that eventually delivered Latveria first to the Axis and then to the Soviets -- but there was no history between Latveria and Captain America. Lukin, too, was a dry hole. They'd even gone over the life history of Vasily Karpov to see if he'd had some reason to hate Cap, but all they'd gotten there was that Steve hadn't been able to prevent the overrunning of Karpov's hometown by the Nazi invaders, a blame that could have been shared by the four thousand Russian troops that had died that day on the front lines. Millions had died for the exact same reasons, Captain America or no, and Karpov could shoulder the blame for the sons of other villages his band of partisans could not protect and had probably threatened through their actions. It wasn't the stuff of blood feuds. 

"It's not enough because they're sick sons of bitches," Clint said, since he didn't really know any more than that. 

Steve rubbed his face vigorously with one hand before turning to empty out the last of the bags' contents. "Bucky knew Peggy, knew what I thought about her, knew what she thought about me -- probably better than I did," he said, attention on the packet of rye bread slices. "I don't know whether to hope that he came here not remembering or if he did."

"He might not have come at all," Natasha said from the entrance to the kitchen. "The Tesseract is like a genie's lamp, yes? Whoever it was could have simply wished the picture and the rose here."

Which was not actually a more comforting thought. It was a much more terrifying one, really. Clint still thought of the Tesseract as a fancy battery, something that had created energy weapons for the Nazis and opened portals for the Chitauri, when it was really so much more. It had done bizarre and unimaginably things to Schmidt and, in the hands of someone who knew its potential, it could be used for a lot more than simply fucking with the head of Captain America.

Steve shook his head. "If they'd used it, wouldn't the gamma ray sensors have gone off? I wouldn't be surprised if nobody called me about it, but I think you two would have known by now."

Which was probably sadly true.

"If you are going to steal a weapon that you know could be traced by its usage," Peggy countered as she moved past Natasha and into the kitchen, stopping by Steve and shooing him aside so she could get to the drawer he was leaning against, and pulled out serving spoons and a fork. "Then you have limited options. You are either intending to hold it and not use it until such a point when it will not matter if it can be tracked or you have come up with a way to defeat this tracking ability. Both options are reasonable here. The picture is of the Tesseract's _case_ , not of the object itself, which would seem to indicate that whoever sent the photograph did not want their location known.

"On the other hand," she went on, holding out the servingware for Clint to take, which he did. "If I were either Lukin or Doom and I was committing to a course of action such as this, would I not have had taken some precautions? A lead-lined room, for instance? The inclusion of the newspaper is practically a written invitation to visit Doomstadt, so it's not that they don't want you to know where they are. If the means are the message, then it's perhaps who they _don't_ want to know that is of note."

By the doorway, Natasha started to chuckle.

"Before we completely contaminate the crime scene with your delicious lunch offering," Peggy went on. "I would like to dust the kitchen table for prints. The photo as well, of course. I would have been content to use flour, but Captain Rogers here got his knickers in a twist about that and I presume you two carry something more useful as a matter of course."

Steve was doing his best to look offended, but failing miserably. He was smiling a bit, though, which Clint suspected had been Peggy's purpose all along.

"I'll go get my purse," Natasha said, disappearing from view. By the time she returned, carefully carrying the photo, Clint had been given plates to carry as well.

They watched while Natasha dusted with bright green eye shadow, or what at least was bright green and labeled as eye shadow, and a whisk brush. The photograph was devoid of prints, but the table was not. There were the usual partials around the edges, but not that many because Peggy kept a clean home, There was, however, a full right hand, as if someone had leaned on the center of the table, that could be nothing but intentional. Natasha took careful photos with her phone, making sure the fingerprint details could be seen.

"I guess we've got our answer about whether or not this was hand-delivered," Clint observed wryly. Peggy cocked an eyebrow at the bad punnage, but he shrugged at its inevitability.

"Send it to Tony," Steve said once Natasha finished, pulling his own phone out of his pocket. "He can run it through whatever database without anyone knowing."

Tony, when he picked up, had the same reaction Clint and Natasha had had to being woken up after a night out, but it was after noon, so nobody was feeling too much sympathy and Tony stopped griping once Steve explained what he wanted and why.

"Start with Bucky's prints," Steve told him, eyes on the green-shadowed hand. "I know they're on file somewhere."

Natasha put her things away and looped her hand through Clint's elbow as she passed. "Come on," she exhorted as he followed, since he couldn't do otherwise without dropping his armload. "Let's set the table."

Which was remarkably unsubtle as far as Natasha went for clearing out a room, but he went, so it worked. They could hear low voices from the kitchen as they worked, but the words couldn't be made out at this distance and Clint didn't have any urge to listen in. After the napkins had been folded and the trivets found and set out, there was nothing coming from the kitchen, so Clint cocked his head in that direction and Natasha shrugged. She had no idea, either. He didn't bother asking her if she wanted to go look, since out of the two of them, he wasn't the one who avoided any display of strong emotions.

He didn't sneak toward the kitchen, but the floor was carpeted and he was wearing rubber soles and he couldn't make a warning noise without being completely obvious about it, so he opted for 'act natural.' Which still had him stopping short just outside the kitchen doorway because just because Steve and Peggy had stopped talking didn't mean that they were done. They were standing in a tight embrace, arms around each other, with one of Steve's hands cradling Peggy's head as she leaned it against his chest. He didn't see Clint because he had his eyes closed, but Clint could see the tears on his cheeks and backed away, this time taking care not to make any noise. He shook his head at Natasha, who was watching him, and they went back in to the living room to wait.

By the time Steve emerged -- dry eyed -- carrying serving platters full of pastrami and turkey and corned beef, Tony had sent Natasha a text that simply said "prints = Barnes," which she showed to Steve, who nodded and then went back in to the kitchen to get the salads and drinks.

Lunch was a surprisingly jovial affair considering the reason it was happening in the first place, They talked of their travels and missions gone awry and foods they'd eaten and everyone ended up taking a turn as the butt of the joke. (Clint was unapologetic of his love for jello mold salads, no matter how much crap it got him, because they were one of the only things he remembered from his life before the orphanage and they were happy memories because what kid was not going to think it was the coolest thing ever?) Steve's attempts to get Peggy to come back with him to New York for a few days were met with gentle but insistent refusal -- Peggy did offer to let Steve drive her around the block on his bike, just to scandalize the neighbors -- as did his attempts to stay with her here in Philly.

Clint and Natasha still left on their own, heading back up to New York early enough to avoid the worst of the Shore traffic. He dropped Natasha off at her place, parked the car in the garage, and then called Tony. Who was very surprised to be hearing from Clint.

"Not as surprised as I am to be calling," he assured. "But you know that especially ill-advised idea our mutual friend has been considering for a while? He's about to commit to it."

They'd talked about it on the drive up; Steve making the trip to Latveria was an inevitability now, not a possibility or a probability. And their going along with him was also an inevitability -- at least if they saw it coming. Steve haring off by himself was still the most likely option and there was no guarantee they'd figure it out in time.

Tony sighed deeply. "I could pretend to be surprised, but there's enough artifice to my persona."

Clint accepted a dinner invitation and turned up at Stark Tower a few hours later. Pepper was in California, returning Tuesday, but she'd left instructions with Marcel-the-chef that there were supposed to be vegetables on Tony's plate at least once per day, so dinner was not the promised beer and pizza because tomato sauce and olives did not count. But it was a working meal.

Clint honestly had no idea how much Tony did or didn't know; he knew Steve talked more to Tony than to anyone else not Peggy, but Steve was not a talker by nature and Tony had been flitting around the world and wasn't doing anything with SHIELD right now since there wasn't much to be done about tracking the Tesseract beyond the already-existing sensors (and even less now that they knew where it was).

So he started at the top, including the bit about SHIELD suspecting that Doom had Tarleton's body and possibly a part of a Steve clone, emphasizing that Steve himself didn't know this and would be better off not knowing until it could be proven one way or another. Tony was arrogant and loved to rub his knowledge in the faces of the people who annoyed him, which was frequently the hierarchy of SHIELD, but he was protective of Steve.

"They don't have anything," Tony assured, stabbing at a tomato in his salad. "I can give you the long answer that would make your eyes glaze over, but the short answer is that there were enough nanites in the rubble of the lab in Minyar that it's statistically implausible for a clone body part to be missing. Even something as small as a finger. Most of what was left there was effectively unrecoverable even before SHIELD sanitized it, but the nanites weren't destroyed when the clone bodies were pulverized in Schmidt's cave-in. They were quantifiable and I quantified them and no, there's no chance Doom is able to build himself a Royal Army of Latveria made entirely out of knock-off Caps."

Clint chuffed out a laugh that was as much surprise as relief. "Does SHIELD know this?"

Because it went without saying that Tony did his investigations independently, not willing to trust them with Steve's well-being.

Tony rolled his eyes. " _Now_ , yes. Until I pointed out that they were using the wrong start numbers, no. Someone had apparently decided to use Steve's weight off of his latest physical instead of the weight of the _clone_. Which was off by two kilos, which explained why they thought they had missing parts."

It was even odds that Coulson wouldn't have told him if he'd asked, so Clint wasn't feeling too guilty that he'd never sought an update.

"But it's not nanites that are going to be sending Steve over the Carpathians, so what's the rest of the story?" Tony prompted. "Because Captain Chatty has a nasty habit of leaving things out when he makes his confessions."

Over a fancy eggplant dish on fancy bread, Clint filled in the blanks on the saga of the Winter Soldier as it pertained to Steve. They both agreed -- as did Natasha -- that Steve had absolute faith that a kernel of James Barnes's memories and personality had remained intact inside the Winter Soldier, even if it were powerless in the face of the brutal twice-over brainwashing he'd received at the hands of first HYDRA and then the Red Room's Monster Factory. Despite all evidence to the contrary. And Steve believed, unwaveringly, that accessing that kernel was both possible and the key to bringing the Winter Soldier in from the cold.

"This is enough to get him killed," Clint said sourly. "The Winter Soldier didn't so much as twitch when he saw Steve."

"And he saw _all_ of Steve," Tony agreed with a lascivious tone, but it was by rote. "But the odds are that the Winter Soldier's just bait, yeah?"

Clint, mouth full, nodded. "We don't know which one of Lukin or Doom is yanking on the string," he admitted once he'd swallowed, "but one of them clearly is and Steve is past any point of being able to resist. Not after today."

By the time they got around to dessert, Clint and Tony had a working agreement to provide support for Steve's inevitable decision to head for Latveria for the Winter Soldier and the Tesseract. 

* * *

"Okay, Iron Man's our only flier, so Tony, your job is to try to get these guys on the ground."

"What, so they can set fire to the Mall?" Tony asked as he fiddled with one of his gauntlets. 

Sitting across from him in the back of the quinjet, Clint grinned. "Put 'em down down by Congress." 

The call had come in on an otherwise quiet weekend afternoon: two human torches were brawling across the sky in DC. It hadn't made any more sense on the second try, either, when it was confirmed with video that yes, two guys completely on fire were throwing haymakers at each other at a couple hundred feet up near the Air and Space Museum. 

"If they're on the ground, we can _put them out_ ," Steve said with a frown as Tapper handed him a tablet. Steve looked at it and handed it right back. "We've got fire crews from Maryland, Virginia, and the District waiting down below."

The idea of a fire truck being plugged in to every fire hydrant in the District was worth a giggle, but once they got closer, it may not have been that far from the truth. It also might have been necessary. There had already been eight fires started by the fighting men crashing in to buildings and shooting fireballs at each other, one of which had hit a gas station, which of course had turned into a clusterfuck. 

All of which meant that Clint wasn't that surprised to find himself perched atop the Jefferson Memorial with a quiver full of fire extinguisher arrows tipped with tranquilizer, waiting for the traveling bar brawl to come this way. He could watch them in the distance, two flaming forms, sometimes tangled together but mostly flying close but apart, slashing across the sky at impressive speeds with comet trails in their wake. They weren't as fast as jets -- or even Tony if he gunned it -- but definitely fast. It was transfixing to watch, both the on-fire thing and the fact that they were men flying without a suit or a magic hammer. Most of the time, Clint was very glad that he had no powers, not even Steve's, but if he could do anything, he thought he'd maybe like to fly. He never wanted to be on fire; he'd gotten trapped in a burning APC during a training exercise back during his Ranger days and, once in a great while, that nightmare still woke him up. These guys were wearing flames like a suit, like skin, and shooting fireballs like they knew what they were doing.

Clint, armed with his extinguisher arrows, knew how to aim, too, and Tony was supposed to be leading them toward him, but all he'd managed to do so far was peel them off the Washington Monument without structural damage. Steve and Natasha were on the ground somewhere; Steve had gotten dropped off by the White House (of course) and Natasha by the Mall. Clint could hear them on the radio sometimes, but Tony was doing most of the talking. 

"All right, Hawkeye," Tony warned. "I think I can herd these cats in your general direction. We'll be coming in from the west-northwest. You should be seeing us in five." 

Tony underestimated Clint's distance vision; he could see them in three. He raised the bow and arrow and timed the fliers. If he did it right, he could get at least one of them down over the Tidal Basin. He did it right, nabbing the trail fire-man center mass and watching his flames disappear as he fell through the air. He was a white guy, young, in shape, and buck-fucking-naked except for what looked like dog tags and ah, crap, that was not what we needed here today. But he was also unconscious, which meant he was limp enough to fall into the water without breaking his neck. Clint turned his attention to the other guy, now hovering in the air facing Iron Man like they were two dudes talking on the sidewalk. 

"Keep him where he is," Clint muttered to Tony as he drew another arrow and fired. Like a deer that had jumped the string, the second human torch turned and started to flee right as Clint loosed the arrow, but Tony grabbed him and, at the last possible moment, twisted him like a pushy dancer taking the lead and the arrow hit. 

"Oh, ick," Tony groused as his arms got coated in the extinguishing foam. "And also wow, am I feeling a little inadequate. This guy could've beaten me to death with his--"

"Tony!" Steve cut in. "We're live in the Helicarrier."

One of the Avengers' fun secrets was that Steve wasn't nearly the prudish old lady he looked like on TV and rarely blinked, let alone blushed, when confronted with guy talk. (Especially after Natasha had explained that no, she was not offended and yes, she was filthier than all of them put together.) He was, however, a bit old fashioned about locker room talk in front of superiors and did not care that Fury and Hill were renowned trash-mouths. 

"We're live on about forty networks, too," Tony pointed out. "And all of them have just broadcast footage of the elephant trunk I'm not allowed to talk about despite everyone knowing Hill can quote entire episodes of _Deadwood_ from memory."

A put-upon sigh was Steve's only answer, followed by a request to fly Suspect #2 to the ambulance waiting on Independence Avenue. 

"Lieutenant Colonel James Hammond, USAF," Tony corrected. "That's what his dog tags say."

Tapper, who'd been at the SHIELD command post to pass on info, cursed impressively. _He_ didn't care about a potty mouth being broadcast in surround sound in Fury's office. "Please tell me this isn't some DoD project gone haywire," he asked plaintively to whatever god of small mercies he hoped was listening. But they were the Avengers and they didn't usually get the favor of small mercies or great coincidences, so Clint figured there'd be a lot of shit rolling downhill because this probably wasn't a couple of rogue soldiers and this definitely wasn't something funny-but-sanctioned blowing up at Dugway or Yuma where nobody could see it.

"Oh, this is is going to get very ugly very fast," Tony assured. "Colonel Hammond is supposed to be living in Mississippi after being remitted to outpatient care eight years after he became a _triple amputee_. Even if I forget that humongous appendage that is brushing against my armor, I still count four working limbs. I know the Air Force was desperate enough to steal Rhodey from me, but I don't think they are actively recruiting octopi."

With this second wave of complications, Clint was left to his own devices to get himself down to street level -- Tony had dropped him off at the beginning -- and then hung around at the shore of the Tidal Basin while the cops fished Suspect #1 out of the drink. He was thus in a position to report that Suspect #1 was Lance Corporal Thomas Raymond, USMC according to his tags. Tapper thanked him and then asked that he make his way to the command post as soon as possible. 

One of the cop cars offered him a ride to the Lincoln Memorial, where the command post was located and where Steve and Natasha apparently already were, and Clint took them up on it. But when he got there, Natasha was talking to a couple of guys in Direct Action Service tactical gear and Cap was nowhere to be found. 

"Probably off with Tapper," Natasha said as she handed him a water bottle. "Someone's got to do the interviews."

Tony landed a few minutes later, still whining about the retardant foam. "It's nothing a car wash and some WD-40 can't fix," Clint assured, patting him on a metal bicep. 

"They seem to come from Maryland," Natasha reported, looking over the shoulder of one of the windbreaker-clad agents sitting at the desk with all of the laptops on it. "At least that's what the images from social media are reporting. And Lance Corporal Raymond lost a leg and one kidney to a roadside bomb in Helmand in 2010."

Clint shook his head. "This is not going to end well."

Tony, face plate up, was looking thoughtful. "Jarvis, what blood types are Hammond and Raymond?"

Clint didn't hear the answer, but whatever it was, Tony seemed to expect it. "No, I know. We should have done it while I was holding him. We'll get samples from Fury."

They were watching some of the phone-camera video on youtube when Tapper joined them. "Where's Cap? He's not answering his radio and Fury's been trying to reach him."

Clint and Natasha and Tony exchanged looks. They hadn't heard of anything happening to Steve -- he'd been up on the White House roof, then making his way back through the cleared streets. 

Tony flipped his face shield down. "I'll go up and do a sweep. He's probably talking to a kid about a lost dog or something." 

Tony blasted off and Tapper went to go call Fury and Clint started walking toward the Reflecting Pool because that would be the first step in reversing Steve's most likely course from the White House -- over to 17th and then north. Natasha fell into step alongside. 

"Found him," Tony announced almost immediately. "Probably in the first place we should have looked." 

Clint looked up and Iron Man was hovering over the far end of the Reflecting Pool facing east. The World War II memorial, which included the tribute to Captain America and the Howling Commandos. 

"Shit," Clint muttered. "Let's go."

They found Steve sitting on a stone bench facing the Commandos memorial. It was a small thing, tasteful after the grotesque that had been the original Captain America memorial, just the official service mugshots next to a framed picture, a blow-up of the only shot of all of them in action in the same frame. It had been a complete cock-up of a mission, Steve had confessed to Clint long ago, bad planning (his fault) combined with bad intel (not so much his fault) and the only thing that had saved their bacon -- and their reputation, since they'd known they had a photographer trailing along -- was that they were fighting Italians and not the Germans they'd thought they'd be attacking. There'd been nothing remotely heroic about that day, which they'd been lucky to survive, but it was the only picture of all of them that included Sergeant Barnes, so that was the one that got chosen. 

And that was why Steve sat there now, shield at his side on the bench with his gloves sitting inside, and hands over his bowed head, fingers curled into his short hair. 

It was weird to look at the pictures of the Commandos, Clint thought, of all of them before, as Steve would put it, things got weird. Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes had been a decorated soldier before he'd been a Commando, a battlefield promotion to his name before Steve had even gotten his enlistment papers stamped. He smiled jauntily in his official Army portrait, like he knew a secret you wouldn't ever guess and it was a doozy. 

Oh, baby, was it ever. 

They stood and watched and waited. Steve had to know that they were there, had to know that they were there because they'd been looking for him and probably for a reason because Captain America was always needed somewhere for something. But those reasons could wait and, for him, for _Steve_ , so could they. Natasha slipped off to talk to Tapper on the radio, telling him that yes, they'd found Cap and no, he would not be coming right over.

"When I officially came back from the dead," Steve began, still talking to the concrete under his boots, "they took down the old picture and put up a new one, in color." He looked up then, turning to face them with an unhappy look on his face.

 _And what will they do for Bucky?_ he didn't ask out loud. 

A news helicopter buzzed overhead -- SHIELD and the FAA had grounded everything while the sky battle had been going on and Clint didn't know if this was a rogue helo in search of a scoop or just the first one off the ground after the ban had been lifted -- and Steve looked up in annoyance. 

"Want me to run it off?" Tony asked. "I'd love to. I hate their coverage. They ran unflattering pictures of Pepper." 

Steve shook his head no. He turned his radio back on, reached for his shield, pulled on his gloves, pulled his cowl back up and became Captain America once more. 

"Let's just finish this thing so we can go."


	7. Chapter 7

"You're not planning on doing anything we're all going to regret, are you?"

The message had come through three intermediaries, but was none the poorer for the handling: a shipping container full of HYDRA and AIM weaponry had been loaded on to a Kronas-owned vessel in Gabon, port of destination Rotterdam. They had three weeks to plan a mission to intercept the shipment and Clint had been given the lead. The just-concluded meeting with Coulson and Tapper had been about objectives and tactics and personnel and logistics and it had gone pretty smoothly for all that it was the first stage of what would inevitably become a complicated op, at least once Tapper and Coulson had acquiesced to Clint's staffing requirements. Or after they seemed to. Coulson had asked him to stay behind after Tapper left and Clint knew the expression on Coulson's face when he asked that question.

Clint cocked an eyebrow, since trying to look innocent would be a confession of guilt. Coulson knew the expressions on his face, too. "No. Why?"

"Because I raised you from a baby agent and ran you and Romanova for years and I know when you're up to something, Barton," Coulson explained calmly. "My question to you is should I care?"

Standing up, Clint frowned. "If this is still about bringing Cap and the Widow, I thought I made my position clear on that -- I want backup this time. I don't care if it's a DA team instead. So long as it's not Kintner's team."

The reaction to Clint's suggestion that he bring Steve and Natasha in on the mission had met with the predicted resistance, which Clint had in turn used against them. He wasn't any debate team prodigy and he'd be the first person to admit that his logic skills were sometimes not good, but how exactly did SHIELD think keeping Steve away from the Winter Soldier was a good long-term plan for either Steve or the cannon fodder they were throwing out in his place? It had done fuck-all for them so far.

"I don't want to die, Phil," Clint continued. "I don't know why the Winter Soldier kept me alive last time, but I don't think he does it a second time and having someone else there with me improves my odds. Having Cap and the Widow improves my odds without me having to worry so much about their survival, too."

This was the god-honest truth and and Coulson would know that. Which was why he frowned and nodded and gestured with his chin at the door.

Clint waited until he was two decks away before he texted Tony to tell him that it was time. Tony was busy as hell these days, some big Stark Industries project and then consulting with SHIELD on the Human Torches (the _New York Post_ had taken the name and run with it), who were now confirmed to be Extremis carriers. He hadn't offered to join the shadow mission and Clint hadn't asked him to -- this wasn't an Iron Man situation (until things went completely FUBAR, at which point Iron Man would probably not be enough). Tony would bridge the gap between what they needed and could get through official channels and what they could not, at least not without giving the game away. The same would hold for the rest of the mission prep -- there would be the tactical and logistical planning they could do at 44th Street and then there was what would need to be done at Steve's dining table in Brooklyn.

Steve had taken the news of his twin missions with a combination of surprise and gratitude and a little bit of resistance. The first two because he didn't quite appreciate how easily read he was at times -- "Seriously, Steve, Peggy Carter is not the only one with a copy of the Cap-to-English dictionary" -- and the latter two because he wasn't sure he wanted anyone else along and didn't want Clint and Natasha risking their lives and careers for his personal business.

"I'll let Natasha beat her own answer into you herself -- and I mean that literally," Clint said as he sat with Steve at one of the outdoor beer gardens that were one of the few not-horrifying aspects of Steve living surrounded by hipsters. "This is personal for her, too. But as for me, I will repeat once more what I have told you a hundred times already: I make my own choices. You're not forcing me. I'm not doing it out of obligation or hero worship or whatever else you're about to accuse me of having as a motive. I'm doing this because you're my friend and because it's the right thing to do. So you can either accept my help or not, but I am going to warn you: I am not going to let you march into Latveria on your own."

This was almost the god-honest truth, but he was pretty sure Steve wouldn't notice the little bit that wasn't. Clint _did_ feel an obligation, but not in the way that Steve would interpret if Clint tried to explain it. If Clint told Steve that he knew damned well why he wasn't still sitting in a prison cell in Leavenworth, Kansas, Steve would have understood that to mean that Clint wanted to repay him for getting the treason charges dropped. Which he was grateful for, absolutely, and would forever be. But what he was most grateful for, what he would go up against the Winter Soldier again -- alone, if necessary -- for was Steve's faith in him.

"We're still going to Rotterdam," Clint continued when Steve said nothing. "What happens after that is up to you."

Steve finished his beer before saying anything. "Thank you."

Natasha took the news with much less drama, which Clint did not confuse with actual smooth seas under the surface. Just instead that going after an ex-lover who might be willing to kill her and her friends was less of a novelty. Yasha Yachmenev was more than just any ex-lover, but that was between the two of them, at least until it wasn't. By which point the bullets would be flying and Clint would have other concerns.

Planning the official mission was straightforward -- difficult, but straightforward. Once the container was offloaded at Rotterdam, it would most likely be put on one of the freight trains that moved through Germany and Austria before offloading cars onto smaller trains that ran to various eastern European cities. The railyard outside Furstenfeld would be the actual raid site, since the train would be there for a minimum of eight hours and a probable ten to fifteen -- EU driver rest regulations, plus the time it took to separate the cars, plus the dual-use tracks that gave priority to passenger trains during rush hours -- and despite the business of the yard, it would still be easier to work unwatched than it would be in Rotterdam.

"We could always try a heist from a moving train," Harrington, the Direct Action team leader assigned to the mission, suggested. "I'd always wanted to do one of those."

"They're harder than they look," Steve assured, not looking up from where he was plotting out points on the map, and it was only a beat later that Clint -- and Harrington -- remembered exactly why Steve knew from experience.

Steve assured Clint that evening, at the _other_ planning session, that no, he was fine with the whole train thing. "It's actually pretty poetic, in its own way," he said as he chopped vegetables. He didn't cook every night they were over there, but most nights. "I lost Bucky on one train raid and now I'll get him back on another."

Clint tried to hide his wince.

The next morning, Corrales showed up to the space on the 23rd Floor that they'd taken over as their war room. He was carrying a notebook and a coffee cup. "The part of Mike Harrington will now be played by Mateo Corrales," he announced with a flourish and a tiny bow toward Natasha. "Which is a vast upgrade in looks and virility, a moderate upgrade in skill, and a much better cross-demographic appeal because the last thing this gathering needed was another Anglo white dude."

While they were all very pleased to see Corrales, with whom they had an excellent working relationship, the switch in personnel caught them off-guard. If they'd known that Corrales's team had been an option, Clint would have asked for them, but the reason they'd gotten assigned Harrington's team was because Harrington's team was one of the European-oriented squads. SHIELD's Direct Action Service, like US Special Forces, had regional specialization and Corrales was a North/South Americas guy.

"I owed Mike a mission," Corrales explained. "He swapped with me last year when I got stuck going to Mexico on what was going to be Isabella's First Communion weekend. He called in the marker last night."

Steve did not facepalm, but he clearly wanted to.

"Don't look a gift horse in the mouth," Natasha told him, giving Corrales an 'I'll tell you later' wave-off. "Now we have a working knowledge of our entire team's capabilities instead of having to base our estimates on the praise of their leader."

The other big advantage of Corrales being the DA team guy was that they could bring him in on the _rest_ of the operation, which would be a lot easier to plan out if they didn't have to factor in keeping secrets from their own people on the ground. The three of them talked about it that night; Natasha and Clint were in favor and Steve was worried about what the repercussions would be for Corrales, who had value in that he worked well with the Avengers, but was hardly as irreplaceable -- or as unpunishable -- as they were.

They agreed to broach the subject with Corrales and see how he felt -- it was a point from which return was not only possible, but easy.

Corrales had no intention of making any such trip. "It's the right thing to do," he said, waving off Steve's protests. "And what's the worst they can do to me? Give me shitty missions for a while? They're already sticking me with every Avengers mission they can and sending me to Mexico to wade in the drug wars when they can't. Fire me? I've got four kids who would love me to be around more and parents who wouldn't mind an extra hand in the store. But they won't fire me. Everyone on Command Deck thinks I've got Stockholm Syndrome and they won't ask me why I did it, they'll ask why it took me so long to do it."

The Phase Two planning got a helluva lot easier when they didn't have to worry about hiding either gear or their actions from their teammates, who at some point not in front of any Avengers had been told that these were not the droids they were looking for and thus would not notice any variations from the stated materiel manifest. Of course, the Phase Two planning was being done without knowing whether the trip was at all warranted. They still didn't know for sure which one of Lukin or Doom had the Tesseract and where it would be. SHIELD's analysts were pretty sure that Doom had the Tesseract because of their inability to find any sign of Lukin making any preparations for any significant change in life status, but that was without them knowing anything about the Winter Soldier's visit to Peggy Carter. Steve thought the visit made it more likely that Doom had it -- why would Lukin be luring him to Latveria if the Tesseract were off in Dalmatia or Paris or wherever else Lukin wanted to stash it? "If this is just about hurting me for whatever he thinks I did to him or his in the past, then he'll do it somewhere not Latveria because there it's more likely someone else gets to me first."

Clint thought that bringing Steve to Latveria might be the first salvo in a war between Lukin and Doom, but Natasha was very firmly of the mind that Lukin did not want to embroil himself in any war, let alone the two-front war with Doom and Putin, with the extra threat of turning SHIELD against him as well. "If Lukin were really interested in this fight," she explained one night over roast chicken and mashed vegetables Clint couldn't identify and Steve had only vaguely explained as being from the farmer's market, which he'd taken as Steve not being sure, either, "then his first step would be to kill _Doom_."

"Are we going there to do that for him?" Steve asked.

"Lukin learned his lessons at the feet of Karpov," she said with a shake of her head. "And Karpov made sure he knew his history. No two-front wars, especially if one of those fronts is Russia in the wintertime, and keep the Americans out of it. No, luring you in is Doom's doing, although I still can't figure out why."

So with an end game based on a series of hunches, they continued to plot and plan, in public and in secret, with only Tony, Corrales, and Peggy aware of the true scope of what was going on. Steve went down to Philly the day before they were to leave for Europe and came back subdued but at peace. 

There was no point in actually going to Rotterdam -- the observation of the container's arrival and loading on to the train could be handled by local SHIELD agents, who also managed to emplace a tracker on the car. It allowed them to fly directly to Graz and have time to observe the rail yard and refine their plan to reflect the reality on the ground. Which thankfully wasn't too different from what they'd expected -- the guards walked slightly different paths, but they also made absolutely no variations in their patterns and the photos and maps had been accurate for once. Theft or sabotage was clearly not a primary concern at the yard; safety and efficiency were. They got to watch a train like the one they were waiting for be broken down into its component parts, cars being disconnected and pulled to different tracks to be added to other trains going to Brno or Bratislava or wherever. The shorter train then hung around until it pulled out, heading for its next destination.

"The trains that come in on Track One aren't the priorities," Steve said as they watched the yard in action. "Tracks Five through Eight are because they've got the heavier loads and require the special equipment. Our train is going to have the bare minimum of attention paid to it. I think we can shift everyone off security except for you and Corbette on overwatch and trade the increased risk for the faster work."

Clint nodded, more than willing to defer to Steve on tactical matters. Steve was the field commander of the Avengers for a reason and if he wasn't in overall command of this mission, he had all the de facto power he needed. He (along with Corrales) had done the lion's share of the planning for that same reason -- he had a much better vision for it, especially when it came to figuring out where everyone fit in the puzzle. Clint could plot out his own course well enough, but he had never really needed to do the same for a dozen people and even if he had final responsibility for the plan, he didn't have the kind of ego that required his fingerprints be all over it. So he listened as Steve and Corrales batted ideas back while he watched what was going on below, which was what _he_ did best.

The timing of their train couldn't have been better. It pulled in at 2338 with a final gentle _whuff_ of the brakes, which was three hours behind schedule and would mean that the train would have to sit in the yard until 0900 at least so it wouldn't gum up the passenger routes. They used the tracker to find the container with the HYDRA toys and then waited for the next pass of the guard and dog before getting to work. Track One was a lay-by track that was the closest to where they'd been hiding, bordered on the inside by a concrete walkway with breaks for cutouts that lead to the other tracks and on the outside by a narrower unpaved path that was in turn bordered by heavy trees with no other security measures (like a fence) save for a 'No trespassing' sign. The only traffic on the unpaved path was the hourly dog-walk, so once that was done, it was just a matter of Casimir breaking into the container and the rest of them, save for Clint and Corbette (Corrales's team sniper) who lay atop the container facing opposite directions peering through rifle scopes, to form a bucket brigade to unload the container to the waiting trailer Natasha had parked on the shoulder of the road on the other side of the trees. There were crates in the container that were going to be too big to move without a forklift, but Corrales reported only two of those and someone was already breaking those open to see if they could be moved as component parts.

"They're fucking mecha spiders," Corrales hissed once he'd gotten into the first. "The big ones."

The only answer to that was to start carrying off legs and figure out a way to get the bodies through the trees without sounding like a herd of elephants. They were too bulky for Steve to carry by himself, but he suggested using their portable stretchers instead.

They worked fifty minutes of every hour, breaking and covering their tracks five minutes before the guard and dog walked by and waiting five minutes until after they passed. But about three hours in and nowhere near time for the next guard stroll, Corbette gave the whistled code to warn for approaching people; there were two coming up the walkway on the inside, scanning barcodes on the sides of the cars. They wouldn't see the SHIELD team, but they would hear them if there was any loud movement. So they stilled and melted back into the trees. In the quiet, Clint could hear the soft rustle of Corbette as he shifted to aim his silenced pistol -- at this range, a long gun was unwieldy and overkill -- and Clint picked up his own Glock because the two workers were approaching the border between Corbette's patch and his own. The problem with sacrificing their boots-on-the-ground security for speed was that there was a good chance that they'd have to shoot whoever became an imminent threat instead of dealing with them in a less noticeable and possibly less lethal way, but Steve had deemed that an acceptable exchange and Clint had agreed. Which was why two guys in coveralls didn't realize how close to death they were as they bitched in lowbrow German about someone's laziness as they moved along, scanning the barcodes on the sides of the car and verifying the destinations and whether they should or should not be marked to be moved to another track. Minutes later, Clint gave the all-clear signal from behind his rifle scope, having transitioned back to his primary weapon as the two moved on without sensing anything amiss.

Emptying out the container took hours; they had to stop regularly for the guard, it was slow work to be quiet, there was a lot of stuff in the container, and they had to adjust once because the train got pulled up ten meters because of a bad rail in the front. They dropped a few things, broke one box and took too long to clean it up, and Stevenson wrenched his back but kept going. Clint could see the coming dawn, then dawn itself, and they were going to have to stop soon because while the trailer was unremarkable parked on the side of the road on its own -- it had a sleeper cab -- it was going to be hard to hide the open trailer door and the black-clad men coming out of the trees to load it once there was civilian traffic.

The train car sorting was nearly complete and the shortened train had been re-assembled; now it was just waiting for the all-clear on the tracks. Down the line, One of the yard foremen started shouting that the train had to be off of Track One and on to the standby track by 8:30 to clear space for the next one coming in. They started preparing to finish up by 0800.

"All right, we're as done as we're going to get," Corrales said at 0750 as he exited the container and replaced the lock. "Everyone take your last loads to the trailer and get in."

Corbette and Clint dropped down from their perch as Natasha came through the trees carrying two backpacks and wearing her own. Corbette took Clint's rifle and, with a mock putting on of blinders, headed off.

Natasha handed Steve and Clint their backpacks.

"Let's do this thing," Clint said. He pulled his radio earpiece out and handed it and the transmitter and his phone to Corrales. Steve did the same; Natasha had left hers in the trailer. Coulson had been listening in the entire time and could have spoken if he had needed to, but it wasn't his style to clog up the radio when there were so many others on the channel. If it had just been Clint (or Natasha), he'd have engaged them a little and requested updates and asked questions, but he had kept quiet here. He would start asking questions once the trailer was underway, though, which was why they were giving up their radios now. Apart from the fact that they'd be useless once in Latveria. Corrales would have to face the Wrath of Coulson, but he was aware of that and had promised to try to work in as much of Abbott and Costello's 'Who's on First' routine as he could. 

The three cars behind the one they'd just nearly emptied out was also going to Latveria, but had more pedestrian cargo with verifiable bills of lading. The next one over had refrigerators and washing machines and other home appliances in it. Natasha picked the lock quickly and Clint followed her and Steve inside.

"You go with God and you come back with everything -- and everyone -- on your list," Corrales instructed them, meeting all of their eyes in turn before nodding. Steve had told Corrales who the Winter Soldier was early on because he felt that Corrales had the right to know the full reason for why they were doing what they were about to do. Corrales had reacted with the expected shock, but had also told Steve that he had never once considered that they were pulling a fast one on him or using him for anything less than a good reason. "You people are crazy and get me and my men into situations I am always surprised we get through intact -- or not covered in vomit. But you're up front about your craziness and you don't put people at risk needlessly or for shits and giggles. It had never once crossed my mind."

"Be safe," Steve exhorted and the last of Corrales they saw before he closed the door was him eyerolling because he knew who was more likely to face danger now.

They sat in darkness, listening to Corrales re-lock the container and pat the container wall to indicate that it was done. He had told them that he would stand watch until the train moved, just in case. The first jerk forward of the train happened at 0812. There was another double-pat on the container and then another jerk forward and then another and and then another and then the motion smoothed out a little and then stopped. They weren't 'on the road' yet, but they were the next best thing.

The car wasn't airtight, but they had still brought a portable air purifier and a small lamp. It was going to be rough living between here and Latveria -- the train had to travel through Hungary, making one stop before the Latverian border. It was going to be piss bottles and MREs and worn paperbacks and lumpy naps until then and Clint thought Steve might've actually been a little happy about that.

"My kinda war," he replied with a shrug when Clint finally asked.

They were three people who could appreciate a comfortable silence, so there wasn't much (any) talking. By unspoken agreement, one person stayed awake while the other two dozed; the first stop in Hungary came on Clint's watch. He woke Steve and Natasha and they stowed their gear and doused the lamp and hid behind a pair of Viking fridges, although they weren't really expecting the car to be disturbed. They broke out the MREs and ate after they were back underway. The next stop would be the Latverian border and _there_ they had a decent chance for the car to be searched. 

"We should have emptied out a box," Clint said as they ate. But it was too late and if the Latverians were going to do a thorough examination of the car, there would be a problem no matter where they were. Especially because if they were going to go car to car, they'd see the emptied-out container ahead of them and all hell would break loose then. 

The second leg was much shorter and they repeated the precautions as the train slowed to a stop once more. This time, the noises were much closer as the hyper-efficient Latverian customs agents searched the train's length thoroughly. Clint could hear dogs and multiple voices and waited for sounds that could mean that the HYDRA car was being opened. But it seemed like they were only opening cars _not_ destined for Latveria, instead making sure that the Romania-bound cars weren't carrying contraband. 

After more than two hours, they were underway. 

"Welcome to the Principality of Latveria," Natasha said with a wry smile. "Next stop, Novy Izvora."

Novy Izvora was Latveria's primary industrial city, an old mill town that had apparently once been full of beautiful buildings and a castle that had held against centuries of invaders from the East, but fifty years of communism had largely taken care of that. Doom had chosen to raze the brutalist Soviet Bloc housing, rebuild the castle, and modernize the factories and the result was a really nice industrial ghetto the size of Boston a half hour out of Doomstadt. 

They were due to arrive in Novy Izvora in the early evening, which in an EU territory would have meant that they would be left overnight because it would be after hours, but they were out of the reach of the EU and its work hours rules now and had to prepare themselves for immediate action instead of a leisurely progress. The car was a kind of container that wasn't suitable for shipping by sea but could be separated from its base and loaded on to a flatbed trailer, so they had taken the chance that that would be what would happen rather than hold the entire Romania-bound train so that the cars could be unloaded or even just detached. The fact that they were hours late might or might not become a factor.

When the train slowed again for the stop in Novy Izvora, they were ready. They'd packed all their gear, policed their area, and checked their weapons. Steve didn't have the shield out, but Clint knew from experience that he could free it in a heartbeat. They had studied plans of the rail yard at Novy Izvora and maps of the city, setting rally points and everything necessary to salvage the mission -- and their lives -- should they have to fight their way out of the car. But they didn't. The voices they heard never rose in alarm as the HYDRA container was lifted off of its flatbed car and the sounds of activity surrounding their car were of things being attached and not the door being unlocked. Of course, Clint couldn't understand a word of what was being spoken outside of a few curses; he wasn't even sure what he was hearing was Latverian. Natasha was the only one with any command of any Balkans languages and both he and Steve looked to her. She shook her head minutely.

"They're yelling at the driver to back up the truck another few meters so that they can swing the car over," she reported. "Half of them are speaking Croatian."

They braced as the car was suddenly jerked upward, swinging sharply and then more slowly as it moved from the track to the trailer before landing with a loud bang that sent Clint to his keester. Steve, who'd kept his feet while bracing against the car wall, grinned at him.

The trailer ride was ten minutes, more or less, and they could hear the warning beeping before they started backing up into a loading dock. The trailer was unhitched, but they couldn't hear any voices. Clint pulled out one of Tony's toys, a tiny through-wall radar that showed no people in the immediate area besides the driver, who was back in the cab of his unburdened vehicle. They waited half an hour after he drove off, but no new bodies showed up.

"Let's go," Steve said.

Escaping from inside a locked freight container wasn't as hard as it could be when you had SHIELD and Tony Stark providing equipment for the Black Widow, so they were free in fifteen minutes. Natasha put the lock back on afterward, even. They oriented themselves checked the warehouse security, and saw that apart from scaling a chain link fence with barbed wire on the top, they were good to go... at least until they saw the dog.

Clint shot it with a tranquilizer pellet; it would be up and dopey inside three hours, perfectly fine by the time anyone showed up for work. The key to their success -- and their survival -- was to not get caught. And to not get caught, they had to keep as low a profile as possible so that nobody realized anything was amiss. Everyone thought Latveria must be swarming with police, but it wasn't. The security services were invasive, but not the actual local police -- the civilian population was more than willing to report unusual activity or strange faces or anything else that didn't belong in the happy nation. So they weren't just ducking the police patrol, they were ducking _everyone_.

("All of Latveria is made up of Mrs. Goziches," Steve had chuckled when they'd been planning. "The block busybody when I was growing up -- she knew everything about everyone because she had nothing else to do but sit at her front window and watch.")

Their ability to avoid the watchful eyes of Latveria was going to be seriously hampered by the fact that they had no way to get from Novy Izvora to Doomstadt without drawing attention except by foot and it was fifty kilometers, far more than they could walk or run in a time frame during which they drew no other attention. The only alternatives were to steal a vehicle or risk getting on public transportation. Stealing a car or a motorcycle or even a regular pedal bike ran the risk of both getting caught in the act and getting stopped at a sobriety/safety checkpoint while underway -- Latveria took both drunk-driving and checkpoint evasion seriously. Getting on public transportation -- there were buses and commuter trains that ran between Novy Izvora and Doomstadt -- was an open invitation to be photographed and videoed for the security services, which made no bones about their surveillance. Especially since they would be traveling after the worst of the evening rush, when the cars were emptier.

There was still safety in crowds, however, so they walked toward the center of Novy Izvora -- staying off the city's subway -- with a half-block between them. They'd brought clothes to blend in and even if neither Clint nor Steve looked anything like anyone who'd be a Latverian native (Natasha had enough Slav in her cheekbones to work with), they didn't draw many (any) looks for being out of place on the streets once they got out of the heart of the industrial zone. There were foreigners in Novy Izvora, which if not the cosmopolitan Doomstadt still had a university and international trade. 

They were able to draw together again as they got closer to Osminplatz, where the commuter train to Doomstadt had its station, because there were so many people there. There had been a delay in Doomstadt-bound service earlier, apparently, and the trains were still overcrowded as they tried to recover in the middle of what had become an extended rush hour. Which meant that there were still hundreds of people milling around waiting for things to settle down and to get a spot anywhere on a train home. There would be no seats and, in the standing room only crush, it would be easier to escape detection -- not easy, but easier. 

"It's going to be crowded enough to make it a possibility," Natasha said. Steve, now dressed in a fashion that his hipster neighbors in Brooklyn would have approved of, except for maybe the deep green Real Doomstadt FC scarf, was holding up the Novy Izvora tabloid to the racing forms while Clint nursed a soda and Natasha fixed her lipstick. "I really don't want to have to steal a car here."

"You two should go," Steve said, folding a page in thirds. "You'll blend in better. I'm too tall. I'll meet you at the Wernersburg station."

"And how are you going to get there?" Clint asked, not completely convinced that Steve wasn't trying to ditch them. "Run?"

"There are a million bicycles here," he pointed out. Novy Izvora was one of the greenest industrial cities in the world and bikes were everywhere. "And I stole my share in unfriendly territory back in my day. I can make better time than either of you."

All of what he said was true, but Clint didn't like it. Steve was good at sneaking around, better than most people realized, and he'd done some disguise work during his war. But this wasn't his war and this wasn't even walking down Fifth Avenue without anyone recognizing him. This was Latveria, with its cutting-edge surveillance tech and security services that would probably not be surprised to find Steve Rogers on their turf. And when Clint looked over at Steve, he could tell that Steve knew exactly what he was thinking and wished that Clint had a little more faith in his abilities. And maybe Clint should, too, because, as Steve constantly pointed out to Tony, just because he didn't particularly like modern technology didn't mean he didn't understand how it worked -- including how it affected others. Clint's nod was, in part, an apology and Steve nodded minutely in return.

Natasha put away her compact. "Steven, I tell you this as a friend: if you are doing this to get rid of us, I will call Victor von Doom myself and tell him where you are."

Steve, grinned. "I don't doubt that for a minute."

They set a time and then a fallback time and place and then Steve handed Clint his newspaper and disappeared into the throng.

"Please tell me that we didn't just serve up Captain America to Doom," Clint said as he tossed the paper into the trash. "Because I'm fairly sure that we'll be forgiven if we come out of here with what we came with and the Tesseract, but I don't think there's anywhere we can run to if Steve gets hung for espionage live on Latverian television."

Natasha chuckled lightly. "He'll be fine. I'm more worried about what he does once we get to Doomstadt."

Which was not actually all that reassuring.

Natasha bought two tickets to Wernersburg, but then they parted ways. No reason to make identification easier by being seen together. Clint pulled his cap low and waited with the others who weren't trying to recreate the last chopper out of Saigon scenes while Natasha, holding a cell phone to her ear and arguing with ghosts in loud Latverian, pushed forward into the crowd. He had time to buy himself a copy of the Russian daily paper; Latveria, the most prosperous nation east of the Rhine, had modest immigrant populations and Lukin wasn't the only Russian to make his way in. So he stood leaning against a lamppost, reading his paper and chowing down on steamed buns filled with lamb and spices, the Latverian version of every country's national dumpling. He went back and bought more because Steve wasn't going to be looking for dinner while out stealing a bike and then went back into Osminplatz and got himself aboard a train. 

Wernersburg was a trendy neighborhood in Doomstadt, vibrant and busy even in the middle of the week with restaurants and pubs and even some shops that were open late. Clint went into a pub that looked like it had been open since long before Wernersburg had gotten hip -- possibly since Werner von Doom (Victor's grandfather) had been in diapers -- and sat nursing his beer while watching the soccer game like everyone else. When it was time to meet Steve, he left a tip that was just enough to be unmemorable, not too much to draw attention and not too little for anyone to remember the skinflint foreigner. 

Natasha showed up to the meeting place with a container of takeout because she, too, had figured that Steve wouldn't have eaten. "He'll eat them both," she said with a shrug, although she did steal one of the dumplings from Clint's container. 

"If he shows," Clint pointed out. "He's twenty minutes late."

Steve, when he hopped off his bike five minutes later, looked almost like a local between his dress and his youth and the bike and the neighborhood. He went over to one of the bike racks and deposited the stolen bike, one that looked like every other one on the rack, before stripping off the gloves he'd worn and sauntering off past the station in the direction he'd come from. Natasha took Clint's arm, like a lover, and followed. There was a park three blocks up and they found him there, hidden by the shadows of the trees until they were nearly past him. 

As Steve ate hungrily, they discussed their options for how to proceed next. Their destination was Castle Doom, but there was a debate about how to get in there and when. It was 2125 local time and it would take them at least an hour to get to the forest-lined road that led up to it. If they were going to break in, then doing it at night seemed best, but, Natasha argued, they did not have to break in. 

"There are hourly tours and the museum will be open, plus the governmental side will be open for business," she pointed out. "Since we're probably going to have to fight our way out, I don't see why we can't save ourselves the fight in."

"You know they photograph every single person who takes those tours," Clint pointed out. "You have to show ID and they run every single name." 

Natasha rolled her eyes. "I didn't say we had to go though with the tour, but it gets us close to the castle without drawing attention."

Steve wiped his mouth and bunched up his napkins along with the debris of his dinner. "I think we should go now and try to breach around three-four in the morning. It'll be the middle of their shift, they'll be tired and bored and not interested in jumping at every single noise. Also, we have nowhere to camp out tonight -- we can't register for a hotel, we can't sleep in the park, we have nowhere to go. We might as well go to the castle." 

Which was how they ended up making the walk up the hill toward Castle Doom, Clint and Natasha together and Steve a block ahead. There was a large park that separated Wernersburg from Castle Doom and it reminded Steve of Fort Tryon Park in Manhattan, with the low-lying grass and flowers and benches overlooked by hills covered with trees and then the Cloisters. This was that on a large scale -- bigger grassy fields, more trees, and Castle Doom dwarfing the Cloisters. The park was open late and was occupied; there were even kids out on their bikes racing up and down the paths that were illuminated by old-fashioned lamps. Steve was reading one of the large standing informational billboards when they got there, but he started following the path on the left, dodging the kids and moving with purpose. 

Natasha drew Clint down to one of the benches and nuzzled at his cheek as she whispered that there was a Doomstadt policeman making his rounds. Clint took her hands and she buried her face in the crook of his shoulder and he bent down to kiss the top of her hatted head as the policeman passed whistling. They stayed like that for a few minutes, enough for the patrolman to finish his circuit and, apparently, tell the kids to go home, since they said something back to him and sped off into the Doomstadt night. Clint and Natasha waited another minute and then got up and started walking, holding hands, in the direction Steve had gone. 

They found him a couple hundred meters past where the last lamp's light shone before the path swept uphill, although not toward the Castle. He'd already changed out of his hipster gear and into basic black tactical gear, compressing his backpack -- Stark Industries design, they squished tight and tiny with the help of vacuum seals -- and hiding it under the bag that held his shield. He waited while they did the same, turning his back while Natasha stripped while making it look like he was watching their backs. 

"We're going to have to go through the trees," he said once everyone was dressed. "There's a regular patrol on the main road and they know what they're doing." 

Natasha cursed in Russian. If she had any weakness as a woman of action, it was land navigation, especially at night. Her milieu was urban, she'd tell anyone, and while she could survive anywhere, she was not at her happiest or at her best plunking around in a forest in the middle of the night. Even with night optics. 

"I'll be tail-end charlie," Clint said, knowing that Natasha would be annoyed at being stuck in the middle for practical reasons, but she wasn't going to complain. 

Steve in the woods was a thing of beauty, silent and dangerous and so quick for a guy who'd never even seen a forest up close until he'd been dropped into one by Howard Stark and Peggy Carter. He was a city boy in his bones, but what the serum had given him had made him a natural predator out in the wild. Clint had had to follow Steve through the roughs more than a few times as they had raided their way through HYDRA's Central and South American bases and he knew what to expect, knew that Steve would slow down enough to keep Natasha from either hurting herself or jeopardizing their stealth, and that Steve would be fingering the land nav beads James Barnes had given him back in 1943. 

It was two kilometers of rough going as they moved uphill, pausing five times to wait out the passing patrols on the road nearby; the patrols were both mounted and dismounted and the latter were in the nasty habit of shining their high-powered flashlights into the trees. Which meant that not only did they have to duck and cover, they also had to take off their optics and wait in the dark while trying to preserve their night vision. When they got to the top, they pulled back so that they could see what kind of security surrounded the castle. 

There was a barricaded checkpoint, avoidable for pedestrians judging by the way the soldiers circumvented it, but it would be impossible for any vehicle to do so. The castle itself was still a few hundred meters down the pebble road, but the closest building was bearing the crest of the Latverian Defense Forces, so it was possibly an armory or a barracks or simply offices for the guards. Regardless, it connected to another building that did stand near the castle walls. 

"Five gets you ten we can get in from there," Steve said, pointing to that second building. "It's too close not to be connected. Probably underground."

Castle Doom had an extensive subterranean network, carved out by some mad Duke of Latveria in the Middle Ages who'd thought to defeat the army besieging him by moving underground. 

"So how do we get there from here?" Clint mused, since Steve was probably right. "Make friends?" 

There were a couple of soldiers standing off to one side, smoking and chatting. They weren't on post, although they were probably on duty somewhere else and taking a smoke break. 

"I like friends," Steve offered. "I would like our friends even more if they were over there." He pointed in the direction of the mostly-empty garrison parking area, well-lit but completely out of the line of sight of everyone else. 

"I can take care of that," Natasha offered, treading carefully through the trees until she was out of their sight. 

A couple of minutes later, they heard her calling to the soldiers in Latverian, sounding very drunk for all that Clint couldn't understand the words. The soldiers turned and dropped their cigarettes and, because the Latverian Army trained well, they raised their rifles as they followed Natasha's sultry voice. Clint shadowed them, pulling out the tranquilizer gun he'd used on the dog earlier. 

Steve helped him move the bodies into the trees afterward, Natasha picking up their weapons and ID cards and keys. She turned off their radios and took off their garrison caps, putting one on her head and handing the cards and the other cap to him and Steve. She kept one of the Gorisecs and gave Clint the other after first offering it to Steve, who declined it but took the other garrison cap. Clint checked the Gorisec, happy to have it because there was no such thing as too much firepower. His arrows were not all meant for tight spaces and it was good to have a weapon that was.

Getting into the building, which was apparently the barracks for the guard platoon, was a matter of walking in -- the door was propped open, undoubtedly in violation of regulations. They made a couple of wrong turns, nearly walking in to the lounge, where a few soldiers were watching a _Inglorious Basterds_ with subtitles and thankfully didn't notice, before finding their way to the entrance to the castle network. This required swiping one of the ID cards, which Clint did. 

"Okay, so now that we've come this far, where the fuck do we go now?" 

In all of the plotting and wargaming, they'd guessed that the Tesseract would be either be in the subterranean levels, which were not on the tour routes, or up in Doom's private apartment. Castle Doom was like the White House, largely an administrative building and tourist attraction with living quarters tucked away on top. It was nothing actually _like_ the White House, of course, with its centuries old weight and construction being both advantage and obstacle to its use. Clint pulled out Tony's through-wall radar and asked it to give them a layout of the floor, which it could do if given enough time. More time than they'd maybe want to give it considering they were in the belly of the enemy's lair, but stone walls from a millennium ago took longer to see through and see around than plasterboard and corrugated metal. 

"There's nothing here that looks shady or especially well-protected," Clint reported as they moved stood in a sheltered corner. None of the rooms looked lead-lined or had higher energy signatures that indicated extra electronic security. Tony had assured him that the device would spot the Tesseract if it were in the open, too, but there wasn't anything so fortunate on the screen, either. "Do we want to go up or down?" 

"Up," Steve said just as Natasha said "Down."

Clint rolled his eyes. "Rock-paper-scissor it out fast, guys."

"I think Doom wants the Tesseract near him," Steve said. "You never saw Schmidt with it. It's like the One Ring, he's not going to want to leave it so far out of reach where other people could touch it or take it."

"He hasn't been using it like Schmidt was," Natasha replied. "He possibly hasn't even seen it in person yet."

" _Guys_ ," Clint warned. 

"It's unlimited power," Steve said, shaking his head. "When you've got some, all you think about is getting more and making sure no one else can get any. I'm going up. If you want to wander around here, go ahead. It's me Doom wants and I'm pretty sure he wants me in a comfortable and well-lit area to better enjoy the experience."

And with that he started walking in the direction that the radar had said would be a stairwell. Natasha huffed in frustration but followed and Clint brought up the rear. Steve wasn't reckless in his impatience, making sure the doorways and hallways were clear and stopping them once so that they could take pictures of what looked like slightly modified versions of HYDRA's standard blaster rifles. 

The toy Tony had given them could tell them where the doors were and how thick the walls were, but it didn't work fast enough to give an accurate read on where the people were if they were moving. Clint had seen the spots that indicated people when he'd generated the initial maps and it had looked like there'd been two people in separate rooms, probably offices or, if Latverian castle personnel were like SHIELD personnel, a few scientists staying late in their labs. He put the radar away now, preferring to rely on his senses and experience instead of a slow-loading video game display that he had to hold up with a hand that could be otherwise holding a weapon. 

Which meant that when they ran straight into a group of Latverian soldiers just coming off an elevator, Clint was both armed and content in the knowledge that having Tony's device out would not have made a positive difference. 

They had been just past an intersection when the elevator doors had dinged and opened and they'd tried to retreat without getting seen, but didn't get the chance. The soldiers turned directly toward them and, even though Clint got two of them and Natasha one more, there were still two and one of them died so that the other could sound the alarm. 

"You know the rally points," Steve said calmly as he deflected bullets and blaster shots with the shield. "Go."

Clint, his back to Steve and Natasha, unshouldered the Gorisec and flicked off the safety. The Latverian troops were pouring on to the floor like HYDRA used to, most of them coming from the same entrance they'd used earlier. "Go where?" he asked sourly. "And please stop trying to ditch us."

They got separated anyway because one of the Latverians dropped a CS gas grenade on them from Clint's side. He'd done the gas mask confidence test every year in the Army and a few more times with SHIELD, but while he knew he could hold his breath and power through the searing pain to get the mask on even if he dropped it first or even if someone was ripping it out of his hands, the problem with now was that _he didn't have a mask to put on_ and would have to stumble with his eyes closed and one hand along the wall and remember the layout of the floor in his head and pray that there weren't half a dozen Latverian soldiers waiting for him to find a spot where he could breathe without setting his lungs on fire. He felt Natasha fall against his back and he grabbed at her, finding her wrist and pulling her along with him as he moved. Steve would have to follow on his own and Clint called over to tell him that and give him a direction to do so. 

His lungs were ready to burst by the time he sensed that the gas was thinner in the air. He exhaled slowly to relieve the pressure and risked a tiny inhale so he wouldn't black out. Natasha was coughing desperately behind him, already past her lung capacity and tripping over her own feet from the force of the wracking coughs, but Steve was not with them. Clint could still feel the burn when he inhaled, but it wasn't searing and he was so desperate for oxygen that he didn't care. He reached around to his quiver and pulled out the water bladder he kept in it, taking careful sips interspersed with deep, burning breaths to stop seeing stars even though his eyes were still closed. He opened his eyes, which were tearing and burning and probably bloodshot, and saw a door. He pushed Natasha, still wobbly with her coughing, against the wall, holding her up with a rough arm across her chest, and tried the knob, which was locked. He kept a hand on Natasha's shoulder as he braced to kick the door in and then dragged her inside, shoving it closed behind them, the light turning on automatically with the motion. It was a supply closet and there were reams of printer paper and boxes of staples and scotch tape and file folders on metal shelves along the walls. Natasha sat on the floor and gasped and coughed her way out of respiratory trouble. He gave her the water bladder and she rinsed out her eyes and drank before handing it back. There were flats of bottled water on one of the shelves and they each took a pair and poured them over their faces and hands and whatever other exposed skin needed the rinse and then drank the rest. 

"Okay, so that went about as we expected," Clint said in a voice completely wrecked by the gas as he pulled out Tony's radar. It would work faster now because it knew the location, but it still needed to find the people, of which there were now many and no way to identify which one was Steve. "Right down to losing Cap. You up to getting him back?"

Natasha nodded. "We're going to have to get masks or wait for it to clear," she pointed out. "Shouldn't be too hard -- you don't pop CS inside unless you have a standard procedure for it."

The Latverian forces weren't a comedy routine and they'd gone to the gas pretty quickly, so there was either serious ventilation in place or everyone carried masks as part of their standard gear or both. 

As if to answer at least part of the question, the air vent near the ceiling started blowing furiously. 

"Steve pushed forward when the gas came in," Natasha said. "He might have gotten a mask of of one of the soldiers or he might have just gotten clear."

"Or he might've ended up at the bottom of a rugby scrum of LDF troops," Clint countered. Natasha shrugged, allowing it as a possibility. Regardless, Steve wasn't with them and it was even odds whether he was captured, chasing the Tesseract, or looking for them. Clint thought the last least likely, not because Steve would ever leave them if he thought they were in trouble, he wouldn't, not even in his current single-mindedness, but instead because he knew that they could take care of themselves.

Natasha stood up and shook herself out and checked the clip on the Gorisec before nodding. It was understood that she would take lead now; she was the indoor cat and he was the outdoor one. The radar thing indicated that the hallway in front of them was clear, the area by the elevator was still chock-a-block with humans, and there were patrols in the hallways adjacent. 

Clint was unsurprised that Natasha led him toward the elevator first; if Steve had been captured, that's where he'd be. But there was no Cap, just LDF soldiers listening to an angry and serious-looking commanding officer bark out orders. 

"They don't have Cap," Natasha whispered. "He's pissed because they don't have any idea where any of us are and they've had to send for reinforcements."

Which was good news in that Steve was free, but not so much about the reinforcements. 

"We need to get out of here," Natasha said, pulling back so that she was no longer peering around the corner. "If Steve wants us to be a distraction, we'd do a better job of it not locked in a giant maze."

There were emergency exit stairs at the opposite end of the floor, at least according to the map generated by Tony's toy. He showed it to Natasha, who looked at it long enough to memorize the details, and then she nodded. The stairs would probably be guarded, but unless it was an overwhelming force, the two of them could fight through it. 

They had to duck patrols, but as good as the LDF was and as much of a home field advantage as they had, Clint was betting his life on the Black Widow being better. And up until the very last turn, she was. 

"Hello, Natalia," the Winter Soldier said conversationally. He hadn't been there a moment ago when she'd checked before they'd gone around the corner or else she'd have never signaled that it was clear. But now here they were, a Sig Sauer pointed at each of their heads. "It's good to see you."

Clint was half inclined to actually believe that. In a completely fucked-up way, of course. Considering that he was equally as likely as Natasha to get his head blown off by the Winter Soldier, he felt oddly like a third wheel. Yasha Yachmenev wasn't looking at Natasha like she was prey (he wasn't looking at Clint at all, which Clint did not confuse with 'a chance to make a move'); he was looking at her like he was an actual human being, which was disconcerting on its own because there'd been zero evidence that the Winter Soldier had anything like human emotions. There wasn't any softness to his expression or longing or any shit like that, just that Clint had never seen anything but cold, bloodless stares and now there was something else. Something else that quickly faded as the sounds of boots running got louder behind Clint and Natasha. 

The Winter Soldier barked out something in Latverian and, a moment later, Clint's world went black with a knock to the back of the head. 


	8. Chapter 8

While he had tried not to make a habit of it, over the course of his career, Clint had become something of an expert at confinement. The worst in terms of accommodation had been the long two days he'd spent in a cell the size of a coffin in Chad, the best by far had been Leavenworth, although that had been the worst for many other reasons. His cell here in Castle Doom was closer to the latter than the former in terms of comfort -- space to move around, quite clean actually, a real bed. But it was still a prison cell and Latveria was not a place one wanted to be on the wrong side of the law. 

He'd come to on the bed a few hours ago, stripped of his gear but not his clothes, with a headache but no concussion symptoms. He'd had time to take a tour of his cell, which was really just a windowless room and nothing with bars or chains, by the time two guards had shown up with a tray of food. It had been 0830 according to his watch and breakfast had been generous and edible and had come with strong coffee and nothing that would require silverware. The guards didn't speak while they watched him eat and Clint didn't bother asking them anything. The scene was repeated at 1230 and then again at 1930, except that lunch came with a copy of the _Times of Latveria_ and dinner with a guard telling him in a thick accent that he would be seeing Prince Victor shortly. It was, in fact, a restful day during which Clint napped and exercised between his meals and tried to teach himself a little Latverian from the newspaper's language section. He wasn't not worried -- he was fucking terrified -- but he'd long ago learned how to manage that particular terror and make the most of whatever respite could be found. This was just another battlefield in the war and Clint could treat it as such. He wasn't going to be here long, no matter how it played out.

Shortly turned out to be 2200, when the heavy wooden door opened and six soldiers came in. One, in poor English, told him to get on his knees and put his hands behind his head, which he did because there were five rifles pointed at his chest. He was shackled from behind at the wrists and ankles with a connecting chain between them, which was going to make it difficult to walk without tripping over himself, let alone trying to escape. But Leavenworth had taught him how to shuffle in chains, so he managed well enough except on the stairs where he ended up with two of his guard grabbing him under the armpits and half-lifting him. They were professional, his guard, no little pokes or indignities, no trying to trip him when he would not be able to break his fall, no taunts or name-calling or passive-aggressive shit. He did not confuse this with respect or with any dim chance that he was not headed for a very bad time and, quite likely, a very bad ending.

He was not led up to the private apartments, nor out to the throne room. They skirted the public spaces, even though there would be no civilian witnesses at this hour, and went into the administrative wing, then down a flight of stairs that required another semi-lift, then down a hallway that led to a pair of heavy wooden doors with black iron rings for handles. Very medieval and Clint was sure it was intentional.

The doors were thrown open after a knock, but instead of some torch-lit cavern, it was simply a large room with desks and computers in one corner and a wooden throne at the far end bracketed by the Latverian flag and a flag with the Doom family crest. Sitting on the throne was Victor von Doom, not looking like a monarch from the fairy tales, but instead like an administrator annoyed at having to work late. Doom was in his early fifties but looked younger, although the serious expression he wore now didn't help with that. He was wearing slacks and an oxford unbuttoned at the top with his undone tie hanging around his neck and his posture was at ease without being relaxed. _Secure_ , Clint realized. Secure in his power and his authority and his plans.

The phalanx of guards stopped a few feet from the throne and forced Clint to his knees hard, which fucking hurt because the carpet wasn't thick enough to buffet the collision of kneecaps on stone floor. They stepped back and Clint rolled his shoulders and did his best to fiddle with the hobble chain that connected his wrists and ankles so that it wasn't twisted around his right leg.

"Where is the shipment you stole from me?"

Clint blinked because he'd almost forgotten about that in the wake of everything that had come after. "It wasn't really yours, was it?"

Doom frowned at him, as if expecting a better repartee, which was just poor research on his part because Clint was a man of action, not a man of banter. "I paid for it. Quite a lot, actually."

"Take it up with Fury," Clint replied, shrugging. The chains tinkled with the motion. They tinkled again when one of the soldiers kicked him _hard_ in the right kidney, driving him forehead-first into the ground. He took measured breaths between gritted teeth to work through the pain and then forced himself back up into a kneel and held his head up high.

"You are here as Fury's proxy," Doom continued in his calm voice once Clint looked up at him again. "Why did he send you?"

Clint couldn't help but laugh, which earned him another kick to the same kidney and this time, he landed on the side of his face, not quite as able to regain his center. A guard pulled him up by his hair before the worst of the pain passed and yanked his head back so that he was facing Doom. He closed his eyes to try to get his body back under control and the soldier shook his head sharply until he opened his eyes again. They were watering, but he did.

"You've been stockpiling HYDRA weapons," he gritted out. Telling Doom that Fury was currently shitting housebricks because Clint was in Latveria would have been pointless. "What the hell did you think Fury was going to do?"

The kick came to his lower back this time, the soldier letting go of his hair so that he could faceplant on the carpet and then be forced flat by a boot between his shoulder blades. He had to twist awkwardly to free the hobble chain enough to get his feet to the ground so that he wasn't lying there like a pig trussed for a luau. 

"This is supposed to make me afraid?" Doom asked, mildly amused. Clint wasn't sure whether or not he would have preferred a villainous cackle. He definitely would have preferred Steve turning up at this point and knocking the boot off his back with a well-timed toss of the shield, but he didn't even know if Steve was at large or in another cell. Doom hadn't mentioned Natasha yet, either.

"I think the owner of the _other_ thing that doesn't belong to you will do a good job of that," Clint said. He couldn't speak very loudly with his lungs being compressed by the boot on his back and his cheek resting on the ground, but he knew Doom heard him. "You can put me on the floor with a boot, but it won't be so easy with a god."

He was yanked up suddenly, pulled to his knees and held by a firm grasp on his right shoulder. Doom leaned forward so that they were a little closer in eye-level.

"Let them come," Doom told him with a calm smile. "The more, the merrier. Latveria shall triumph over all and show the world her true strength and glory."

And that's when Clint realized what the whole plan really was. _This_ was why Doom had been taunting Steve. Where Captain America went, the rest of them followed like marionettes tied up in each other's strings. Doom could take on the Avengers, take on _SHIELD_ , and by proxy the US, the global hyperpower, with the Tesseract. And he would probably win, which would make himself -- and Latveria -- a force to be reckoned with and no longer at risk of economic domination by the EU or military threats from Russia. Clint was here to be the OPFOR in a carefully managed exercise where the 'good guys' were guaranteed a win.

Doom sat back and smiled at Clint like a teacher pleased that his pupil had figured out the lesson on his own. A subtle hand gesture and Clint was dragged to his feet. He moaned involuntarily as his side protested.

"You've been found guilty of espionage, by the way," Doom told him, like it was an afterthought. "Your execution will be scheduled shortly."

And with that, he was escorted back to his cell to pass an uncomfortable night, undisturbed by visitors but plagued by nightmares and physical pain. He didn't dream about an upcoming execution, but instead of past misadventures and a cobalt-blue haze. He pissed blood, which wasn't a surprise, but only once, which was okay. Lying in bed trying to find a comfortable position, he reviewed the interview and considered what had been revealed -- interrogations worked both ways like that. It had been well-played by Doom, who'd all but handed him the master plan because it was harmless for him to know, but had kept the details that would matter -- what Natasha had said or done, whether Steve had been captured, whether there'd been any response from SHIELD -- to himself. SHIELD would come, of that Clint was as sure as Doom. Fury would be fucking pissed, but between the HYDRA weapons, the missing Avengers, and the Tesseract, he would be forced into action. And Doom would be waiting for them.

Clint dozed on and off and had managed to finally drop off when he was woken up by the guards bringing him breakfast at 0830. He ate it wrapped in a sheet because he'd rinsed out his underwear and undershirt before going to bed in the buff -- four days in the same pair of shorts was enough. He checked them after the guards left with his tray and they were still a little damp, so he figured he'd continue his toga party until lunch or his next royal audience, whichever came first. He considered asking for a razor, which would either provide amusement because he couldn't even get a knife with his meals or would let him get rid of the itchy scruff. He didn't mind the beard once it grew in -- he'd had to do it often enough as a Middle East specialist -- but the getting there was its own kind of torture. 

He did not get a chance to ask for a razor at lunch because there was no lunch. At 1045 he heard the lock on his door turn and then the door opened. Steve appeared, shield in one hand, Clint's quiver and bow in the other, and a hilarious expression on his face because he probably hadn't expected to find Clint sitting naked in bed wrapped in a sheet like a courtesan.

"You feel like getting dressed and getting out of here?" Steve asked, making it sound like a real question that Clint would have to consider.

"I dunno," Clint replied, scratching at his cheek as he untangled himself from his toga and went over to where he'd left his clothes hanging by the sink. "The food's pretty good, although the view sucks."

Steve frowned when he saw the bruising on Clint's side and back. "How bad?"

"I'm not passing blood anymore," Clint answered after he got his head through his undershirt. "I'll be sore, but I'll be fine."

Steve tossed him the quiver and bow once he stood up from tying his boots and they were off. Clint had been surprised that there'd been no alarms blaring while he'd been getting dressed and no soldiers running for them, but once they got out into the hall, the question answered itself. 

Steve had _littered the ground_ with LDF troops; it looked like a mass casualty drill from his Army days.

"You leave anyone for Natasha?" Clint asked as they walked quickly past some of the fallen men. "She's probably going to be in the mood for a melee. You know how she gets when she's been cooped up."

He bent down -- _oww_ \-- to pick up a couple of Gorisecs not currently needed by their owners.

"There'll be more," Steve assured darkly, holding up a fist to get Clint to stop behind him. He slipped the shield free and then stepped back to throw it. Clint heard the sound of the shield making contact with flesh and bone and then the sounds of bodies hitting the floor. Steve gestured and they moved again, Steve retrieving the shield off the ground without breaking stride. Clint picked up a couple more Gorisecs so that Natasha couldn't say he'd never given her anything nice.

Natasha was dressed and in good condition when they found her, which was for the best because Steve had been right and there were more LDF soldiers on the way. Not a lot, though, not like the swarm from last night and, thank christ, no more gas grenades. After dealing with them, they followed Steve into a stairwell and then up four flights to ground level, where they had to wait for a tour group to pass by because they had apparently been underneath the public areas of the castle.

"How did you get out?" Clint asked while they waited, Steve watching through the window in the door and Natasha and Clint taking the up and down staircases respectively. "Or were you here the entire time?"

"I got out by accident," Steve admitted. "Just fought my way free of the gas and the soldiers and there was a window."

Which was a ridiculous oversimplification because they'd been underground and Clint had _seen_ the destruction Steve was capable of rendering if motivated, but he let it pass.

"And I got in with a tour group," he went on. "I was the sole Frenchman in a group of Chinese tourists."

Steve spoke fluent idiomatic French, so it was a reasonable choice. And it wasn't really going to matter if they'd taken his picture -- Doom already knew he was around and would not be leaving his teammates to their fates.

"I'm assuming you don't want to tag along with the next tour so we can get out and get home," Natasha offered, not making it a question.

"The Tesseract is in Doom's apartment," Steve replied. "And Doom isn't in town today."

Clint spared a look over. "He kept the appointment in Dubrovnik?"

There'd been an item in the paper the guards had given him yesterday about a Balkans summit, a one-day event that Doom was going to with his foreign minister. "Do you know for sure that he went and it's not just a bluff? His whole grand plan kinda requires him to be here."

Clint explained what he'd figured out -- what Doom had told him. Natasha confirmed it; she'd gotten the same conclusions from her own interview. "Would he even leave the Tesseract behind?"

"I saw the footage of him walking off the plane on the news this morning," Steve answered, gesturing that Clint and Natasha join him on the landing because they could move through the door now. "He's only going to be there until this evening and I don't think he's expecting Fury to react so quickly. We're too close to _not_ take the chance to look."

They went through the doorway, moving quickly and quietly down the stone-floored hallway and past the portraits and tapestries that lined it. They were in one of the arched hallways that ran alongside the throne room, on the opposite side of it from the museum, but you could cross over behind the massive throne room and past the pair of chapels. This hallway was served by a stairwell that led up to the levels with the private royal apartments, although the entrance to it was cordoned off and dire warning were attached to the door, presumably backed up by guards and fortifications on the upper end.

Definitely guarded, but Natasha and Steve took out the three guards without so much as a cry of surprise between them by the time Clint joined them on the landing. The door beyond them was locked, but the prone guards had keys and IDs to swipe and then they were in.

The royal apartments were just that, a mansion on one level with a gazillion bedrooms and galleries and libraries and hallways. There had been a map to look at back when they'd been planning the mission around Steve's dining table, but it had been outdated, before Victor had done his renovations once he'd taken over for his father. How much use it would be now was up for debate because they didn't know what Victor had done to the place. 

The apartment would be unoccupied, at least. Victor had a wife and three children, but the family was currently in France; the Baroness Valeria was a native of Lyon and still had family there. 

"His study's in the southeast corner," Steve said, pulling out an old fashioned pocket compass because that's how Steve rolled. "That way."

"How do you know where it is?" Natasha asked as she started walking in the direction Steve had indicated. Clint saw what she was doing -- taking point meant that she could dictate the pace and keep Steve from bounding ahead into trouble. 

"I asked someone," Steve replied. "Very nicely."

Natasha looked over at Clint and he rolled his eyes because yes, this was the Cap they were going to have to deal with today. 

Natasha led them through the kitchen and dining room, then paused. "Where is everyone? The family's gone but there should be a cook, a housekeeper, a maid, somebody."

If this were a trap, getting the civilians out of the way would be wise.

"Maybe they got the morning off?" Clint suggested. "Won't need the cook until Victor gets home and wants a late-night snack and even this place doesn't need dusting every day." 

Natasha made a face that said that yeah, it was possible, but she didn't like it. 

They proceeded more cautiously past what seemed to be a family room and then a room with a piano and books and couches and a harp before reaching the end of the hallway with two doors, both open. One that looked to be the entry to the master bedroom suite and the other Victor's study, judging by the books on the walls. 

Natasha was heading for the study when Steve suddenly grabbed her and threw her against the wall with his right hand while holding up the shield with his left arm. Two bullets ricocheted off of the shield with dull _pings_ and Steve went charging into the study. Clint raced after him, past the still-stunned Natasha, who quickly fell in behind him and then crashed into his back, accidentally ramming his bruised kidney with the Gorisec because he'd stopped so short. But it was all he could do to get out of the way as Steve and the Winter Soldier brawled like Ali-Frazier, grappling and punching their way across the large room. 

The Winter Soldier had a reinforced case with a handle in his hand, presumably the Tesseract case, and was using it as a cudgel against Steve, who was using the shield only defensively and not as the true offensive weapon Clint knew it to be. He'd seen Captain America use that shield like a boomerang, like a club, like a crowbar, like a machete, and in one memorable experience, like a trebuchet. But that was the problem, Clint realized -- this wasn't Captain America fighting, this was _Steve_ and Steve Rogers was not going to bludgeon his best friend from childhood into submission. No matter if that best friend from childhood was currently trying to kill him. The metal arm, terrible and fascinating up close, was such a weapon that the Winter Soldier had holstered his gun and was instead just raining blows down, sending sparks off of the shield where it hit and destroying everything else it came into contact with. The heavy wood desk crumpled like particleboard when a fist landed where Steve's head had been a heartbeat earlier. 

And all the while, Steve was trying to _reason_ with the Winter Soldier, with _Bucky_ , and the Winter Soldier, who'd taken Yasha Yachmenev as a name because he remembered no other, was not inclined to listen. 

"Will you shut the fuck up!" the Winter Soldier barked, each word punctuated by a smash of metal fist on shield. 

"Barton, incoming," Natasha growled behind him, pulling at his arm to turn him around because the LDF had finally joined the action, coming down the hallway in attack formations and firing at the open study door. Natasha moved forward, to the doorway, and used it for cover as she fired back. Clint felt behind him for the gas arrow and popped in a tranquilizer cartridge before nocking and waiting, waiting, _waiting_ until there were enough bodies in the hallway to make the shot worthwhile. 

"Close the door," Clint ordered Natasha after he fired, not waiting to see the results. He knew he'd done what he'd set out to do. He looked over at Steve and the Winter Soldier, still struggling with the case. "Give it ten seconds."

Anyone who'd not gotten a lungful would be at the door by then, everyone else would be zonked. 

"Enough of this shit," he muttered as he watched the two men fight. Steve was pressed up against the built-in bookshelves, the shield protecting his torso as the Winter Soldier tried to push them both through the bookshelf and keep the case out of Steve's hand. Clint raised one of the Gorisecs hanging by its strap over his shoulder and aimed for the Winter Soldier's metal arm by the shoulder -- regardless of his current predicament, Steve would not forgive Clint for a shot that resulted in a serious wound. But Clint was pretty sure the arm was bulletproof and he needed to distract the Winter Soldier so Steve could get free, if not actually gain the upper hand without assistance. 

In the heartbeat between when Clint fired and when the bullet should have pinged off of the Winter Soldier's metal deltoid, the man grabbed Steve and turned them both, forcing Steve to raise the shield or be hit himself. With a final shove of Steve toward Clint, the Winter Soldier and his cargo made for the open window and jumped through it. 

"Buck!" Steve shouted and ran right after him, not even sparing a backward glance. Or a forward glance, because the window was fifty feet up. 

"Jesus _Christ_ ," Clint bit off in frustration, running to the window and watching Steve already rolling out of his landing and running after the Winter Soldier. They were in the private gardens, a quieter counterpart to the Versailles-like public ones past the stone castle walls. There was no way out of the garden except to scale the wall or go back into the castle through a single entrance, which Steve seemed to realize because he was moving to block the path to it. 

Natasha exhaled loudly in frustration as she surveyed the scene below. "It's too far for me to jump," she said, eyes still on the scene below, where Steve and the Winter Soldier were facing off a few feet apart, Steve blocking the way and the Winter Soldier looking like he was still deciding whether to bull his way past or pull out his gun and blast his way through. "Hopefully, they'll wait."

With that, she started running for the door, readying both Gorisecs in case she had to shoot her way through to the stairs. Clint returned his attention to the window even though he heard shots fired, but only a couple of bursts and they weren't very close. Natasha was probably down the stairs already. Clint nocked a paralytic arrow and followed the Winter Soldier through his sight, but he didn't fire. Steve was holding his own and, if Clint could, he would let Steve do what he needed to do to get this done. Getting the Tesseract was only part of the mission as far as Steve went and Clint was willing to give him as much rope as he could to accomplish that. Including continuing to shoot to disarm. 

Because of the acoustics of the castle and the walls, the noises from down below canyoned up pretty clearly and Clint could hear everything. Right now, it was a lot of cursing on the Winter Soldier's part and calm pleading on Steve's part and, thankfully, no shouts of Latverian guards on approach. Clint was pretty sure he'd be left alone where he was; the action was down below and they'd taken care of most of the castle guards and whoever else was up here had presumably followed Natasha downstairs. Reinforcements would need to clear the palace of civilians -- and tourists -- before doing anything. Doom's plan to embarrass the Avengers in defeat needed witnesses, but the world would look much less hostilely upon Latverian forces that had defended their royal palace from invasion if there wasn't a lot of collateral damage and it would be hard to pin the deaths on Captain America. 

"...we fought bullies in Brooklyn and Nazis in France and this isn't what we do, Buck. This isn't what _you_ do. Remember who you are."

The Winter Soldier's expression clearly stated just how tired of this bullshit he was and how little any of of what Steve had been saying resonated with him. "What the _hell_ are you going on about? This is _exactly_ what I do. Very well."

And then he ran at Steve, leading with the metal arm and even though Steve got the shield up in time, it still staggered him backward and as he threw his arms out to regain his balance, the Winter Soldier pulled out his pistol and Clint raised the quiver. It would be a difficult shot; the metal arm was facing him, he didn't have a clear angle at any soft flesh, and a head shot would be fatal no matter what kind of arrow tip he had.

"I don't know who you think I am and I don't give a fuck. You are in my way." And with that he raised the pistol and aimed it at Steve. 

"James! _No_!" Natasha shouted, appearing out of Clint's peripheral vision and running toward the men. The Winter Soldier stepped back, out of Steve's range to knock the pistol away without taking a step forward, and then he pointed the gun at Natasha to halt her before returning it to Steve's direction. 

Clint had had a shot while the Winter Soldier had been turned toward Natasha, but right now, he was back to nothing. He sheathed the paralytic arrow back in the quiver and pulled out a standard tip; with both Steve and Natasha down there, Clint's ability to respect Steve's wishes should the situation devolve was rapidly diminishing. 

And then it didn't just devolve, it disintegrated. 

Steve let his shield arm drop, then he went to his knees. He held his head up and looked squarely at the Winter Soldier and _waited_. "If you really don't know me, if this is truly who you are now, if I am just a roadblock to you, then do it. Do what you need to do."

"Jesus _fuck_ , Steve," Clint sighed and raised the arrow and put his eye to his sight. Because Steve might hope he was talking to James Barnes, but it was the Winter Soldier holding the gun aimed at his forehead. Steve might wish that this would jar Barnes's memories free somehow, but Clint accepted the evidence as it has been presented this afternoon and knew better, knew from the memories he repressed as hard as he could that even if Barnes were rattling around in there somewhere, it wouldn't matter. He loosed an arrow that bounced off of the Winter Soldier's metal hand, but with enough power to force the bullet wide. Because the Winter Soldier had indeed fired. 

The tableau below him was frozen for a long moment -- the Winter Soldier couldn't believe he had missed, Steve couldn't believe he had taken the shot, and Natasha was too far away to have an immediate impact except by shouting but she, too, was stunned in place. 

Who wasn't stunned in place were fresh reinforcements coming through the royal apartments; the LDF had finally counted the Avengers in the backyard and realized that they were one short. Clint looked out to see if there was something, anything he could aim the grappling arrow at and hope it would stick. The castle walls were too far away, as was the other wing of the palace itself, and nothing else was high enough. 

With no other choices other than fighting his way through -- and that would take too long -- he nocked the grappling arrow and leaned out the window, aiming it at another window on the same level, one of the ones from the master bedroom suite. He fired, waited until he could feel some tension on the line, and then jumped just as the first bullets started hitting the bookshelves around him. He was more George of the Jungle than Tarzan as he swung wildly out and then used his wrist guards as a friction guard and slid down the rope. The grapple slipped free halfway and he ended up falling the last fifteen or so feet. He rolled out of it well enough, although his side was hurting badly enough to see stars, and ran toward Natasha, stumbling on the first step because his right leg gave way under the sharp pain in his side. 

"I totally meant to do that," he huffed when he joined Natasha, who was running after Steve, who in turn was running after the Winter Soldier, who looked to be making for the castle walls, although Clint couldn't imagine why. He would have to scale the high walls with one hand holding the Tesseract case. 

The nearly-getting-his head-blown-off thing apparently had shaken a few scales from Steve's eyes and he flung the shield for the first time against the Winter Soldier, hitting him in the back and sending him ass over teakettle and the Tesseract case flying. 

Clint had his bow up because the Winter Soldier came out of his roll with pistols in both hands, but his focus wasn't all on the guns because the blue glow of the exposed Tesseract drew him with an almost physical force. It sickened him, but he couldn't look away. It was like a heroin addict facing a mountain of horse. 

"Barton," Natasha hissed and Clint closed his eyes and reopened them to see the Winter Soldier pointing one gun at Steve and the other at Natasha. 

"James, _please_ ," Natasha begged in English. "There's more going on here than you know. Let me help you. Please."

The Winter Soldier laughed and replied in Russian that their time for helping each other was over and he had already paid her back for services rendered. His tone made it clear exactly what services he was talking about and it was obviously meant to wound. Natasha hid it well, but Clint knew it had struck home and the Winter Soldier knew it, too. 

But Natasha recovered quickly. "You can be an idiot on your own time. This is work," she spat back and from the cadence it sounded like she was quoting someone and she might well have been because the Winter Soldier frowned at her. But then, without turning his head, he fired three shots at Steve, who had been edging closer toward where the Tesseract lay. 

Steve deflected them with the shield, hiding behind it as he lept, coming down by the case and the blue glow disappeared behind it, but only for a moment because Steve had the fucking thing in his bare hand and he was looking straight at the Winter Soldier. 

"Remember who you are."

There was a flash of light like lightning and, for a split second, Clint wondered if Thor had returned to take back what was his. But when his vision cleared, Thor was nowhere around and the Winter Soldier was five feet from where he had been standing, on his knees and breathing hard. _Hyperventilating_. Clint realized, seeing the terror and confusion in the other man's eyes that he recognized all too viscerally himself. And the nausea, too, because the next thing that happened was the Winter Soldier -- _Barnes_ \-- on his hands and knees puking. 

Steve started to move toward him, Tesseract in his hand, but froze. "Buck?" 

There was such hope in his voice, such _fear_ , and Clint could see a million emotions flitting across Steve's face, but he couldn't pay more attention to that now, however much he wanted to. They were now surrounded by LDF troops, none of whom seem inclined to move at the moment, granted, because this was probably even more confusing without context or subtitles. But that wouldn't last. 

"Nat?" he called over quietly, but she was as transfixed as they were.

Barnes gasped loudly, a miserable moan of pain that seemed to make Clint's chest vibrate and he realized -- _accepted_ \-- how near the end of his own supply of cope he was getting. How near he had probably been for a while. As if last night's blue-tinted dreams hadn't been enough of a warning. He'd spent the entire run up to the mission and then the mission itself worrying about the details, about Steve and Natasha and how they were or weren't dealing and what kinds of stupid shit could come out of that, about whether he would survive his Latverian captivity, about getting everyone home. And he had pointedly not thought about his own history with the Tesseract or how frequent the dreams of being back under Loki's control still were, or about how everything about this mission was building to recreate all of those memories brick by bloodstained brick. Because here he was, feeling the Tesseract pull at him like a magnet and watching someone wake up from a nightmare that still made him sick to his stomach (and it had only been weeks for him compared to Barnes's _decades_ ). He had had enough, he decided, and for a moment he deeply resented having to be the only one with the sense and capacity to pay attention to their fucking surroundings.

"Natochka," he hissed louder and there was an edge to his voice, one he hadn't intended to put there but one she heard nonetheless.

She shook herself free. "Shit," she muttered as she looked around. She looked over at Clint, frowning for a moment and Clint wondered what the hell was on his face, and she nodded; she'd play her part in their defense if the soldiers started to close in. 

Steve, meanwhile, had crept closer to Barnes, crouching down next to where he had moved away from his sick. But Barnes pushed him away hard with his metal arm and an anguished shout. 

Steve lost his balance and the Tesseract, but got back to his feet right away, leaving the Tesseract where it was and keeping his eyes on Barnes. 

"Did you know, Natalia?" Barnes asked in a hollow voice, still looking at the ground. "Did you know then?" 

She shook her head no, then realized he wouldn't see her. "No. _No_."

Behind Clint, the soldiers were muttering among themselves, clearly unsure of what they were supposed to be doing because they recognized the Winter Soldier as one of their own, but he wasn't killing the bad guys and so maybe they should. It would have been good if Clint had any useful Latverian, but the odds of getting Natasha to translate now were between slim and none. He turned to face the ring of soldiers, though, hands on the Gorisec because he'd need that more than the arrows at such a numerical disadvantage. He couldn't understand their words, but he could still read their body language clear as day. 

"You should have let your friends kill me," Barnes said flatly behind him.

"No!" Steve barked out and Clint looked back over his shoulder. Steve might have been protesting the statement, but he was also yelling at Barnes because Barnes had picked up the Tesseract and was holding it in his metal hand, watching it with fascination. Clint felt sick all over again. 

"This _thing_ was the start of it. You know that, Steve?" Barnes asked, looking over at Steve. "For Schmidt, for me..."

"Your start was at St. Vincent's," Steve corrected firmly. "You didn't move to Brooklyn until you were two. I used to say that you were born a Giants fan and you would hit me every time I did until the other kids started hitting me and then you started hitting them instead."

Barnes tried to smile, but it didn't get very far and then it disappeared. "That guy is dead. Schmidt killed him. Karpov killed him. Lukin killed him. _I_ killed him."

"No you didn't." 

"I killed a lot of people, Steve. Do you have any idea how many? Do you have any idea of what I've _done_?" It came out wretched and angry and disgusted and Clint tensed because it had been so full of self-loathing that he was pretty sure that Barnes was about to do something stupid and neither Steve nor Natasha would be able to stop him. 

After Natasha had bested him and brought him back, Clint had been kept in a locked room with nothing he could hurt himself at his fingertips -- a suicide watch he hadn't recognized as such at the time, seeing only the precautions necessary in case he had still been Loki's slave. But Barnes wasn't somewhere safe and protected, he was holding the fucking Tesseract in the middle of a battlefield.

"I've seen the files, yeah," Steve replied, taking a small step toward Barnes and then stopping. Edging closer. "But that wasn't you."

Clint had heard that plenty of times, too, and, years later, he still didn't believe it. He understood Barnes's dismissive snort for what it was.

"It--"

"Bullshit," Steve cut him off.

"I don't care whose finger was on the trigger when it was pulled," Steve went on. "It wasn't you where it counted. I know you. I will _always_ know you. Even when you don't know yourself. You are a good man who was forced to do terrible things."

Clint knew what Steve was offering here, knew what kind of lifeline Steve's faith, his _grace_ in the face of your sins, could be. He hadn't understood why it had been offered to him after Loki's control had been broken, but he had clung desperately then. And he remembered how relieved he was to realize that it had still been there for him after the thing with Natasha when everyone else had abandoned him or thought he'd betrayed them or worse. He knew how important it was to Natasha to get it back after she'd fled SHIELD in disgrace. It was possibly the most powerful thing about Steve and Clint knew that James Barnes, as addled as he was right now, knew it, too, because he'd felt it first, before Steve had had any kind of physical power to distract from what came out of his heart. 

But that had been a long time ago and all they could do now was hope that Barnes remembered it well enough to pull him back from whatever dumb thing he was about to do. 

There were tears running down Barnes's cheeks. 

"James," Natasha whispered and Clint looked over at her. There were tears in her eyes, too. 

Barnes looked over at her and saw something that made him turn away in pain. In shame.

The soldiers surrounding them were moving and Clint switched his attention back to them. They were organizing into a formation that was less a semi-circular firing squad and more of an effective line against the bad guys. Who in this case were actually the good guys. Clint whistled over at Natasha and gestured with his head once he got her attention, which required a second attempt. She nodded after a long moment and started to move slowly to her left as Clint shifted a little to the right, not enough to draw the soldiers' attention as a concern, but enough to put the two of them in a better position to return fire effectively. His new position let him watch both the drama and the soldiers, since turning his back on the Tesseract didn't actually make its call to him any quieter. 

"Have I ever lied to you, Buck?" Steve asked and Clint could hear that Steve recognized the precipice they were standing on. 

Another half-smile warped by pain from Barnes, accompanied by a cocked eyebrow of disbelief. "All the time."

Steve rolled his eyes, which got something that might've been a laugh out of Barnes. 

"Not about important stuff. This is important. The Winter Soldier wasn't you. It was someone wearing your face and, God, I'm sorry for that. But it wasn't _you_."

Barnes shook his head. "I still have to look at the face in the mirror, Steve. And I don't think I can."

"Then don't use a mirror," Steve exhorted. "You can shave without one. The razors now are all baby-proofed."

Barnes was looking at Steve like he wanted to laugh for real, like he wanted to believe that it could be that easy, but he couldn't believe that and, right then, Clint knew that Barnes was going to let go of the lifeline of Steve's unwavering faith. He's seen enough men broken by deed or circumstance to be able to recognize the look of someone for whom death was a means to a better end. Or simply a relief. He had been pulled back from that, distracted with a bigger fight until the one in his own heart and mind had resolved itself peacefully. But they couldn't do that for Barnes here. And so Clint was left praying that Barnes didn't take the rest of them with him when the moment came. But it would come.

The Latverians expedited things, probably accidentally in light of what came after. One of them called out something that was directed to the Winter Soldier, not really understanding that that man didn't exist anymore. Except then he did, Barnes's face growing cold and emotionless and Clint stopped looking at it or at the LDF audience because the Tesseract was glowing brighter and the siren's call in Clint's head was growing louder until it became a shout. 

"Buck, no!"

But the Tesseract's glow grew brighter still until it whited everything out and then there was an explosion, the blast wave knocking Clint down hard enough to stun. When he shook it off enough to be able to look around, everyone else was down, too, like bowling pins, except for Steve who was standing and looking around frantically. But Clint knew from the lack of buzz at the base of his head that Steve wouldn't find what he was searching for.

Barnes and the Tesseract were gone. 

The scene reset with depressing speed and Clint, Natasha, and Steve found themselves back to back to back surrounded by dozens of LDF troops. Clint hoped that they were still supposed to be taken alive to be hung on television because otherwise, they were kinda fucked. 

_BZAKKK_

A blast from the sky startled everyone, including Clint. 

"Am I late to the party?" Iron Man asked cheerfully. "Wait, that makes no sense. I can't be late to the party. The party doesn't start until I get here." 

Tony was hovering on high and putting on a show, but it was a diversion because he he wasn't alone. A pair of quinjets were descending for unloading behind the ring of LDF troops, who were content to start firing at Iron Man, oblivious to the danger behind them until it was too late.

Steve took advantage of the distraction and threw the shield and Natasha swung into action and Clint pulled out the taser net arrow (contained and subdued at once!) and the battle quickly became comfortable in its familiarity. And in its conclusion. 

"Where's Barnes?" Tony asked, landing near Clint once the rout had been thoroughly completed. "And the Tesseract?" 

"Gone," Clint replied, looking over to where Steve was standing, rubbing his free hand over his face and looking around. He looked like he'd been kicked in the stomach, metaphorically at least because the real thing wouldn't leave him looking so devastated. 

"Right," Tony sighed, following Clint's gaze. "You think he'll let us pay him back?" 

Clint didn't know the answer and Tony didn't stick around for one, going over toward Steve, who was putting on his brave Captain America face and Clint wondered how Steve thought that anyone who knew him would buy it. 

Corrales was easier to find than Natasha, whom Clint was pretty sure was avoiding him because she was probably as emotionally naked as Steve right now. 

"You're not in the brig," Clint greeted him. "You did better than I did."

Corrales wasn't blind to what's going on, either, but gracefully chose to instead focus on the actual matter at hand. "Not guilty by reason of insanity-by-osmosis," he replied with a shrug. "And then I was told that I got you into this mess, so I can damned well get you out."

The escape out of Latveria was a little hairier than the fight in the garden because the Latverian Air Force had had time to arm fully before mobilizing. The quinjets had to fly like bats out of hell until they joined up with the fighter jet escort back to the Helicarrier, which was over the northern tip of Italy. 

Steve dozed on the flight -- or he was pretending he was, which was more likely because despite him being up for most of the past week with very little down time, he'd just found and then lost his best friend all over again. They left him be, even Tony, who chose to make Corrales's team his audience. Clint sat next to Natasha, who was not saying anything to anyone, and if she leaned on his shoulder a little, he wasn't going to say a word. He could've maybe used the comfort of contact himself.

When they landed aboard the 'Carrier, Clint told Corrales to get Steve and Natasha out of sight and then marched up to Fury's office so that the man could have someone to shout at without making things worse. 

Tony stopped him before he could reach the tower. "You want me to tag along?"

It was a generous offer as far as Tony went and, frankly, Clint could have used the support, but he shook his head no. "Fury yells at me differently than he yells at you. It'll go faster if I'm by myself."

Which was a half-truth because yes, what he'd said was true, but he just didn't want another witness to whatever he might say by accident. Tony didn't know him well enough to see that. Or maybe he did, since he gave Clint a cock-eyed look before nodding and staying put while Clint continued on.

Fury was spoiling for a fight, but Clint thought he was more angry for form's sake than anything else. Clint had too much history with the man to believe that Fury -- or Coulson -- was either surprised or disappointed at what happened, although they'd obviously wished for different results. Tapper, on the other hand, was angry for more than just form because he was the one who had been cut out of the loop and had to deal with the fallout and Clint couldn't entirely blame him. But he was wrung out himself, drained for far more than physical reasons, and he cut short Tapper's tirade with a ferocity that he'd probably have to apologize for later.

He went down to the Avengers team room and showered and shaved and changed, unwilling to go find a bed and rack out because as exhausted as he was, he knew what he'd dream of if he slept. He had no idea where Natasha was and if she didn't want to be found, she wouldn't be. But Steve would be easier to locate, although whether he'd want company was a different story.

He felt a little selfish seeking out Steve to ease his own pain when the man had so much of his own right now, but there he was, sitting in the corner of a weight room with his fletching kit while Steve demolished heavy bag after heavy bag. They didn't talk, didn't acknowledge the other's presence, but Clint relaxed because he knew that while he might not be doing anything for Steve, at least he wasn't making it worse. And he wasn't sure if he had more than that to give right now. 

Natasha showed up when Steve was on Bag #4 and set up in a different corner from Clint and started to clean her guns and her spider's bite bracelet. There was no talking, just three pockets of isolated dysfunction coexisting together and the sound of fists hitting the bag.

Tony showed up when Steve was exchanging the corpse of Bag #4 with its successor. He was in his civvies; the latest version of the Iron Man suit made getting in and out of it easy.

"Okay, pity party's over. Rogers, you have five minutes to shower and change," he announced, looking around the room. "Pepper will put up with a lot from you, but not body odor and it's still a long flight home. The rest of you will do as-is."

He waved his arms in exhortation when nobody moved. "Chop-chop, people!"

Clint looked over at Steve, who was still standing there with the heavy bag balanced between his feet. It was going to be his move. Or maybe it wasn't because Natasha finished putting together her bracelet and stood up. Her movement had attracted Steve's attention and she looked at him almost challengingly.

He sighed and put the bag on its hook, but then started unwrapping his hands. "Ten minutes," he said, then started walking toward the door, picking up his towel on the way.

"You, too, Robin Hood," Tony said once Steve had disappeared through the doorway.

"Coming," Clint said, voice a little ragged for having spent so much time shouting. Getting up hurt like a motherfucker; he'd managed to avoid getting sent down to Medical -- he'd need a check-up before he was returned to duty, but he'd be fine by then.

Tony thankfully did not require either entertainment or an audience for the flight back to New York, which was just as well because they all slept. Clint dreamed of storming the Helicarrier, Blue Nightmare #2, and woke himself up with a gasp. But everyone else, Tony included, was still out, so he closed his eyes again. Except then he felt Natasha's right hand on his left, a gentle squeeze, before he passed out again.

Pepper Potts was gracious and solicitous and very firmly determined to make sure none of them were left to their own thoughts too long -- she had had enough experience minding Tony that the rest of them were probably hardly an effort. Steve excused himself and went out on to the farthest part of the expansive balcony, out of sight unless you went to the glass doors to look. Which, of course, Tony did despite Pepper's telling him not to.

"Jarvis," Tony prompted, not budging from the door despite Pepper pulling at his elbow.

"Captain Rogers is speaking to Miss Carter," Jarvis reported.

That seemed to satisfy Tony, who let Pepper drag him back into the living room and was already on to his next topic of conversation. They were still watching the ad hoc presentation of his plans for a flying car -- Clint was arguing that convertibles were better in concept than execution for jet-powered flight -- when Steve returned, eyes bloodshot but body language much more relaxed.

"Is this for Christmas?" he asked, gesturing vaguely at the hologram as he sat down on the couch. "Because you missed my birthday."

Tony gave him a sour look. "I got you a _great_ birthday present."

"You gave me a Roomba."

Steve's utter mystification over its function -- over its existence as a consumer-available product and not just for people like Tony -- had been hilarious to watch. And when the thing had started racing back and forth between rooms in manic fashion, Steve had turned it off and put it in a closet after first offering it to Clint, who hadn't needed it because he had a terrifying Polish lady who showed up every week.

"It's what every bachelor needs!" Tony protested.

"You should give it to Corrales," Natasha suggested. "He's got kids and pets."

Marcel-the-chef then announced dinner, despite the fact that it was five in the afternoon New York time. So they sat down to a meal that Clint realized most of the way through was simply a very gussied-up pot roast and noodles and fresh-baked bread and vegetables that he couldn't resist asking Steve to identify. "And don't tell me they're from the farmer's market."

Which in turn required explaining that context and, from there, things got easier. Not easy. Today -- this week -- would not be easy for a while. If ever.

Tony proposed a toast to James Barnes when the wine and cheese came out, but Steve objected to the "in memory of" part.

"I think he's still alive somewhere," he said quietly but firmly.

Clint looked over at Natasha. He'd known this would come up -- there'd been no body and they all knew what had happened with the Tesseract and the last guy who'd disappeared because of it.

"Like Schmidt? Because--"

"Not like Schmidt," Steve cut Tony off forcefully. "He'd never do that to anyone else, not after what he's been though. I don't know where he is, but..."

But he had to believe that James Barnes hadn't held a magic lamp in his hand and wished himself out of existence as penance for his sins.

"Maybe he is," Pepper said, not a trace of condescension in her voice. "And if he is, then I hope he can find his peace."

**Author's Note:**

> If you're on Tumblr and would like to be notified when there are new chapters added to the story, I post fic updates [here](http://laporcupina.tumblr.com/) (among other things).


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